OREANDA-NEWS. January 24, 2013. The 2013 Gaidar Forum was held in Moscow. Leading Russian and foreign experts discussed the principal trends of the national and global political and economic development.

On January 17, 2013, a panel discussion entitled "Russia’s strategy in the World Trade Organization" was run at the forum. It was attended by Vladimir Salamatov, WTC General Director, Leonid Kazinets, Chairman of the Board of Barkli Corporation and a member of the Russian Government Expert Board, and Irina Bakhtina, a member of the Board of Directors of Unilever NAMETRUB.

The list of foreign speakers included Richard Baldwin, Professor of International Economics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (Geneva); Silvana Malle, Professor, University of Verona; Anders Aslund, senior fellow of the Washington-based Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics; Kari Liuhto Professor of International Business, Director of the Pan-European Institute Department of Marketing and International Business, University of Turku (Finland).

The following topics were touched upon in the course of the panel discussion:

Russian in the WTO: what is the best approach to adaptation?

How can Russia get maximum benefit from its WTO membership?

What is the WTO’s current situation and prospects?

What must be Russia’s strategy inside the WTO?

Trade talks: a reboot.

In his presentation, Mr. Salamatov said that "the main goal of all integration processes for Russia is, first of all, integration with the European Union." One of top priority challenges remains development of economic collaboration with South East Asia. Quoting Dmitry Medvedev, Mr. Salamatov spoke about the necessity of creating a free trade zone with minimum technical barriers across the entire Eurasian continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. A free trade zone, if it is to be created, necessitates harmonization of standards and technical requirements for the products manufactured in that territory.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the new countries first experienced disintegration and then came to a new integration. "We have developed a powerful locomotive in the post-USSR space, a Customs Union, which is turning into a Common Economic Space," stated Mr. Salamatov. Economic figures of trade volumes between CIS countries and members of the Customs Union give clear evidence of the necessity of further cooperation. In that connection, on January 17, 2013, an agreement between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan was signed. The new pact grants all CIS countries the right to use the Customs Union’s technical regulation system without having to accede to that organization.