Russia joins WTO after 18 years of talks

After 18 years of negotiation, Russia  entered the World Trade Organization (WTO), which restricts import duties and subsidies in an attempt to create a level-playing field for international trade.

Analysts and politicians hope that Russia, which has long proven a formidable market to foreign investors because of its byzantine bureaucracy and protectionist tariffs, would be transformed by its entry into the WTO. Russia is one of the last major global economies to enter the group, which has long included other developing nations such asChina.

While consumers here will benefit from the lower cost of imported goods, some worry that struggling industries long coddled by state subsidies, such as agriculture or the automobile industry, will suffer because of foreign competition.

Russians often complain about the burdensome cost of Western-imported consumer products, which range from refrigerators to jeans. With its entry into the WTO, the country will cut its average import tariff by 5.9 per cent, making those imports cheaper.