Russia Aims to Enter Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development

Russia aims to enter the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This was announced on Wednesday at a press conference in Paris by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov. As announced by the department of government information, in summing up his meeting in Paris with OECD General Secretary Donald Johnston, Kasyanov said that 'this will become the next stage of Russia's integration (after entry into the WTO) into the global financial and economic structure.'

Kasyanov also said that during his meeting with the head of the OECD, 'we reached an agreement that Russia will be the major priority for the work of this organisation with non-member countries of the OECD'. According to him, the OECD will spend approximately half of its means allocated to non-member countries of the organisation on Russia. Kasyanov underlined that the OECD has already taken an analysis of the situation of subsidies in the Russian agricultural economy. Experts of the organisation supported Russia's arguments in talks with the WTO that in Russia the agricultural economy is subsidised several times less than in EU countries. 'We will use these findings in talks on entry into the WTO, for which Russia is required to open its market to import of agricultural products'.