Russia's WTO entry may hurt meat sector

Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the EU can cause tremendous harm to the Russian meat and agriculture industry, according to local analysts.

According to them, this will not lead to any increase of investments into the Russian meat industry, but on the contrary, can cause its stagnation. Their point of view based on the experience of the Baltic countries - Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia - recently becoming part of the EU whose meat industry has suffered greatly as a result of the EU integration.

Analysts said that amid a single economic policy and free trade, the EU and WTO, has still not created in the Baltic countries any single major meat enterprise with the number of employees more than 2,000 people.

They said the EU is making huge investments in the meat industries in the UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, Luxembourg and other European countries at the same time, while the investments in the new members of the EU are 50- to 100-times lower.

This, according to analysts, is the reason that the current level of meat imports in each of the three Baltic countries is 1.5- to 2-times higher than exports.

Russia has been negotiating its accession into the WTO since 1993 but various issues including enforcement of copyright laws and meat exports have halted the country's acceptance in the past.