OREANDA-NEWS. April 25, 2011. Dmitry Medvedev discussed with Angel Gurria the question of Russia’s accession to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Trade Organisation.

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PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA DMITRY MEDVEDEV: Mr Gurria, colleagues, I wish you welcome once more.

Meeting here in narrow format now, I want to say that since Russia first declared its goal of joining the OECD 15 years ago, we have now moved to the stage of real and purposeful dialogue.

We see each other regularly at international forums. I am very pleased that you have come to Moscow and taken part in the meeting of the Commission for Modernisation and Technological Development of Russia’s Economy and the Skolkovo Board of Trustees, and saw what sorts of issues we are discussing. It made us very happy to hear your thoughts on these issues too.

We see entry to the OECD as a priority, our next priority after joining the World Trade Organisation. I hope these two events, which I think are closely interlinked, will take place soon, and I hope for your close involvement in this process.

SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC COOPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT ANGEL GURRIA: Thank you very much, Mr President. It’s a real privilege to be able to meet with you and your colleagues.

Let me start with Skolkovo, because this was the issue that was discussed now. Let me give you these overall assessment and recommendations of the final I had to produce especially when I knew I was going to be able to meet you. We will produce the whole document, the whole, the full recommendations in June, and we’ve been working with your team, with the Ministry of Education and of Science, and we think that this can be an interesting compliment to this notion that you have and that is produced in Skolkovo. When I say this Skolkovo could be like a spirit, a call, a message. It will not become a name of a place, but it would become like an attitude. So, I think this is very, very ambitious, and I congratulate you.

I also would like to say that the process of accession continues, Mr President. Everybody wants to see the Russian team, everybody. We have now had for about one and half years we’ve been working on this. And we calculate that this should go on throughout this year and a good part of next year in terms of completing the whole process. We are, of course, very interested in following the process of WTO accession that is in parallel because we did not want to start when you had finished, but to do it in parallel. And this year end, actually, we will complete a new full economic survey of Russia. We will be able to deliver it by, maybe, November – early December. I hope to be able to have the pleasure of delivering it to you personally, which means we are ongoing, we are continuing on it.