Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) is in sight and could be sealed by the end of this year, WTO Director General Pascal Lamy told Reuters in an interview yesterday (28 July).
“There’s clearly an acceleration in this Russian accession (bid) to the WTO recently. I now believe that Russian accession to the WTO is in sight. I even would say it can be done by the end of this year when we have a WTO ministerial,” Lamy said. ”My feeling... now is that it can and will probably work.”
Russia’s 18-year quest to join the WTO is a history of missed deadlines and optimistic predictions of an imminent deal, but Lamy said he had never made such a prediction before. Read more here.
