The short-term, immediate impact of Russias accession to the WTO is relatively minor. It is just like minor concessions made at the final stage of the negotiations, compared to the concessions made steadily over the course of the entire 12 years. The sectors to suffer most will be pig farming, dairy and cheese production, as well as the manufacture of trucks and buses. Accession to the WTO guarantees that Russia will not defend its market and its producers, and this is important for major foreign exporters, especially for global corporations. That is why they strongly supported the liberal fundamentalists. But the most important factor in the WTO is the regulation of trade disputes. Lower energy costs than in developed countries can, in principle, be considered as subsidies for domestic producers, after which they will have to pay fines not only on foreign, but also on domestic markets. As a result, Russian fertilizers will be priced out of the competition not only abroad but also in Russia and although foreign fertilizers are cheaper, they will not be affordable for Russian farmers. Detailed analysis and additional arguments in an article published on the www.valdaiclub.com
WTO membership is something that helped the low wage & low exchange rate country China develop industrially, maybe it can help Russia as well.
It took 18 years for Russia to join the WTO because many in Washington are still sceptical of Russia and there is still a US law which denies Russia normal trade relations with the US and the US president has been granting Russia annual waivers since 1992 without scrapping the law itself, which is unfair to Russia because it renounced Communism with the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. The Chinese economy has overtaken Japan last year thanks to its WTO membership which boosted China's international standing considerably and Russia will experience unprecedented prosperity following in the footsteps of the former Communist ally in Asia.
