Talks on Russia's joining WTO enter "specification stage"

Talks on Russia's joining the World Trade Organisation have entered the "specification stage", Russian deputy minister for economic development and trade Maxim Medvedkov said to RIA Novosti on Tuesday. He is the Russian chief delegate at the Russia-WTO talks.

In Kaliningrad (centre of Russia's enclave on the Baltic) Medvedkov together with regional experts is holding the round table The World Trade Organisation: Legal Base, Functions, Goals, Joining Procedure.

"We have for a long time been holding a discussion with the WTO on our country's entry into the organisation. Many principled questions - energy, agriculture - have actually been settled. In at least six months the negotiations will come up to the final point and enter the decisive stage. It only remains to specify some details", added Medvedkov.

Among these details are, to him, solution of the problem of cargo traffic to/from the Kaliningrad region and fixing a status for the region's special economic zone in the context of Russia's entry into the WTO and the expansion of the European Union.