Russia comes to G8 summit with WTO membership in mind

Russia comes to the Group of Eight summit at Sea Island with a firm intent to speed up its admission into the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which would take it closer to the G8 chairmanship and cement its place in the elite club.

While some leaders -- most notably French President Jacques Chirac -- have toyed with the idea of holding G8's 2006 summit in Moscow, Russia's admission into the WTO would make such a prospect more viable.

Although G8 participants are not required to also be members of the WTO, they usually partake in all major international organizations and "a non-WTO member chairing the G8 would be unseemly," said a high-ranking Western diplomat in Moscow.

For Russia, hosting a G8 summit would cement its place as a full-fledged member in the superpower club -- a prospect that has remained doubtful despite the fact that it has been invited to every G7 summit since 1993, first as an observer and then as participant.

Russia's WTO prospects improved at the end of May after it clinched an agreement with the European Union in which the bloc gave its nod to Moscow entering the trade organization.

"They will speak of Russia at the G8 summit at Sea Island and George W. Bush may give a favorable opinion, like other US presidents have before him," said Alexei Portanski, director of the WTO information office, a largely unofficial group close to the Russian government.

"After successful talks with the Europeans, Bush would be obliged to do something tangible," Portanski said.

Though talks on WTO will not be addressed directly at the Sea Island summit, the national leaders could still make decisions that would then be transmitted to negotiators.

Moreover, in bilateral talks with Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to raise the problem of imports of new cars to Russia, a major stumbling block in bilateral WTO negotiations.

In talks with Bush would come other thorny issues -- protection of intellectual property, with Russian authorities struggling against a dynamic counterfeit industry, regulation of non-tariff barriers in agriculture and alcohol products, and customs fees on civil aviation products.

Russian experts are counting on the accord with the European Union giving an impetus to their WTO talks with other members.

"This has already happened, as the European Union recognised Russia as a market economy, to be effective six months later, and then the United States did the same, effective immediately," Portanski explained.

In private, Russian negotiators also rely on the human factor -- the US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick's mandate expires this year and he would like to go out with a success under his belt.

With the Doha Round stalling, WTO talks with Moscow would be the best bet to do so -- as it had been for the European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, whose mandate is also running out, they said.

The Group of Eight is an informal superpower club, made up of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.