Economic and Social Consequences of Russia’s Accession to WTO: Meeting in St.Petersburg.

On 21-22 February, 2003 in St.Petersburg (Pushkin) the First Tripartite Consultative Meeting on the “Economic and Social Consequences of WTO Accession for the Russian Federation” was held. It was intended that this consultative meeting was also an integral part of the discussion on “Social Dimensions of Globalisation for the Russian Federation”.

Among the participants were Alexander Pochinok, Minister of Labour and Social Development of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Shmakov, Chairman, Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (FITUR), Oleg Eremeev, Director General, Coordinating Council of Employers' Unions of Russia (CCEUR),Friedrich Buttler, Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia of the ILO (Geneva), Mikhail Dmitriev, First Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation, Pauline Barrett-Reid, Director of the ILO Moscow Office.

The meeting was held in two parts. The first part was devoted to presentations of preliminary results of analytical work on the consequences of the WTO accession done by specialists from ILO, the World Bank, Department for International Development (UK), the Centre for Economic and Financial Research, The Higher School of Economics, the Institute of Economic Forecasting of Russian Academy of Science. The OECD representative addressed the consultative meeting with an introduction on OECD understanding of possible consequences of foreign trade liberalization and the impact of such liberalization on productivity and employment and different approaches to assessment of such consequences. The leading WTO negotiators from the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade presented their position.

The second part of the meeting was dedicated to the next steps of collaboration and was conducted in the form of a discussion for tripartite constituents as well as the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the ILO.

The meeting was concluded with a press conference, with the participation of many reporters from the St. Petersburg and nation-wide mass media.