Russia is pushing to complete World Trade Organisation membership requirements by the end of this year and hopes to formally join in 2006, but not at any cost, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said on Saturday. A senior WTO official said this week that Russia, the biggest economy outside the trade body, was a long way from clearing all hurdles to membership.
But Kudrin, speaking through a translator on the sidelines of the Group of Eight finance ministers meeting, said Russia's accession to the Geneva-based WTO was going "according to plan."
"For this year, our task is to sign the appropriate protocols only.... but this should not be to the detriment of the quality of the protocols."
"The deadline that we establish for ourselves should not force our hands, should not force us to make compromises we don't want to make," he added.
The protocols lay out membership rules and once they are signed a candidate country needs to pass through a process of documentation and verification before a vote on its membership bid.
"Our task is to sign the protocols. We of course say this conditionally because there are still a number of outstanding points: overflights, meat quotas, and others," Kudrin said.