Information about the Russian Federation’s WTO commitments

As part of the accession accord, Russia has agreed to undertake a series of important commitments to further open its trade regime and accelerate its integration in the world economy. The deal offers a transparent and predictable environment for trade and foreign investment.

From the date of accession, the Russian Federation has committed to fully apply all WTO provisions, with recourse to very few transitional periods (see details below). The Russian Federation’s commitments will include the following:

Market access for goods and services

As part of the accession, Russia concluded 30 bilateral agreements on market access for services and 57 on market access for goods.

Market access for goods — tariff and quota commitments

On average, the final legally binding tariff ceiling for the Russian Federation will be 7.8% compared with a 2011 average of 10% for all products^.

• The average tariff ceiling for agriculture products will be 10.8%, lower than the current average of 13.2%
• The ceiling average for manufactured goods will be 7.3% vs. the 9.5% average today on manufactured imports.

Russia has agreed to lower its tariffs on a wide range of products. Average duties after full implementation of tariff reductions will be:

• 14.9% for dairy products (current applied tariff 19.8%)
• 10.0% for cereals (current applied tariff 15.1%)
• 7.1% for oilseeds, fats and oils (current applied tariff 9.0%)
• 5.2% for chemicals (current applied tariff 6.5%)
• 12.0% for automobiles (current applied tariff 15.5%)
• 6.2% for electrical machinery (current applied tariff 8.4%)
• 8.0% for wood and paper (current applied tariff 13.4%)

Final tariffs will be bound at zero for cotton and information technology (ITA) products (current applied tariff on ITA products is 5.4%).

The final bound rate will be implemented on the date of accession for more than one third of national tariff lines with another quarter of the tariff cuts to be put in place three years later. The longest implementation period is 8 years for pork, followed by 7 years for motor cars, helicopters and civil aircraft.

Tariff rate quotas (TRQs) would be applied to beef, pork, poultry and some whey products. Imports entering the market within the quota will face lower tariffs while higher duties will be applied to products imported outside the quota.

The in-quota and out of quota rates are listed below with the out of quota rates in parentheses:

• For beef 15% (and 55%)
• For pork zero (and 65%). The TRQ for pork will be replaced by a flat top rate of 25% as of 1 January 2020.
• 25% (and 80%) for some selected poultry products
• 10% (and 15%) for some whey products
• Some of these quotas are also subject to member-specific allocations

Date: 2015-01-12; view: 857