You're reading: Russia’s Putin urges West to press Georgia on World Trade Organisation

MOSCOW - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin urged the United States and the European Union on Thursday to help overcome Georgia's objections to Russia's accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) now that broad agreement on entry terms has been reached.

Putin’s comments came at a crucial stage of Russia’s 18-year-old bid to join the trade club, with the former Soviet state of Georgia, which fought a brief war with Russia in 2008, effectively able to veto Moscow’s accession.

"I have a question: do our main partners in Europe and the United States want Russia to become a member of the WTO or not?" Putin said at an investor conference in Moscow.

"You don’t need to hide behind the issue of the Georgians. If they want to, they can accomplish this very fast, especially with the compromises we have already reached."

Russia’s economy is by far the largest outside the 153-member WTO, and senior negotiators have said that it would be possible to formally admit Russia at a ministerial meeting in December if accession talks stay on track.

Separate Swiss-mediated talks between Moscow and Tbilisi have failed, however, to resolve border issues resulting from the 2008 conflict, which led two small breakaway regions to declare independence with Moscow’s backing.

NET BENEFITS

European officials had feared that Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012 could derail the accession process but Putin, while disparaging the failure of the WTO’s Doha round of free trade talks, said joining would on balance be worthwhile.

"Is [WTO entry] to the benefit of Russia or not?" he asked. "Fifty-fifty, in sum there are more pluses than minuses, more pluses. And we will not step back from this aim. We are ready."

In 2009, Putin threw Russian entry into confusion when he announced that Russia would instead form a customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Talks were again disrupted last December when Putin announced incentives for international auto makers that make cars in Russia with locally-sourced components.

On car assembly, Putin said: "At last we have found a compromise that I think is acceptable for us and our (EU) partners."

Putin said Russia had consultations with foreign investors under the new car assembly regime and said Russia was ready to "partly" subsidise their work. He did not elaborate.

General Motors , Fiat , Ford , Renault and Volkswagen plan to invest $5 billion in Russia to set up production, in exchange for duty breaks on imported components.

Putin said joining the WTO would give Russian consumers access to higher quality and cheaper goods. But he acknowledged that Russian companies that are uncompetitive stood to lose out.

"Many business people, many of our large companies say to us, the government, that there is no need to enter [the WTO] … we have our own domestic market." That is why the government had fought hard for advantageous conditions for entry, he added.