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Article: No thanks, Geneva; Russia and Western clubs.
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- June 20, 2009
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Why Russia is turning its back on the World Trade Organisation
IT HAD become almost a ritual. Every year Russian officials promised that by the end of the following year their country would complete the negotiations to join the World Trade Organisation. Every year the timetable slipped by another year. But now Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister, has broken with the ritual by announcing that, after 16 years of trying to get in, Russia no longer wants to join the WTO on its own but only as part of a customs union that it has forged with Belarus and Kazakhstan. The turnaround shocked trade negotiators on both sides, who only weeks ago were trying to iron out ...