Russian-British Economic and Trade Co-operations - Dissertation Example

The country follows a licensing system for some of the goods namely pesticides, items for self-defense, weapons, jewels as well as precious substances. These materials constitute only 3% of the total imported goods. The issuing of the licenses belongs to the Ministry of External Economic Affairs while the licenses are controlled by State Customs Committee. It is the duty of the importers to fill the customs freight declaration statement. The importers need to produce the certificates of origin as well as the conformity certificates to the customs.

The authorities of Russia have taken various measures that will limit the number of fraud cases in goods transport. The country follows the system of harmonized Customs. The calculated ad valorem is resultant on the CIF value of the goods. It is the duty of the State Customs Committee to impose the duties and taxes. A single tariff regime named general tariff is prevalent in the country. Import taxes of varying rates are also prevalent (The Federation of International Trade Associations, 2006).

The country focused intensely on joining the World Trade Organization after the presidential election of 1999. The accession of the country to the WTO is now complete. A significant amount of progress was made in the last year which paved the way for the accession. The country will benefit from the accession in the long run on several fronts, one of the most important being the discriminatory measures held by the 30 countries against the exports of steel of Russia. It is also anticipated that the accession to the WTO drives more foreign investments.

However, the liberalization and the privatization demands that the WTO regime brings may cause some difficulties for the country as the country is still highly regulated. Before the country joined the WTO it completed bilateral agreements with the other countries in WTO. The bid of the country to join WTO faced a hurdle on the issues of low rate of domestic energy consumption and the closeness of the market for the foreign competitors. The member countries of WTO expressed the view that the country should charge equal prices for oil and gas even domestically.

The accession process was boosted as Russia worked out the disagreements on prices of energy as well as agricultural subsidies with the European Union. The country has identified a list of strategic industries for which it is anticipating to secure longer periods of transition upon entry from the rules. The country is not open to liberalizing the services and feels to provide some time to the manufacturing sector to modernize the capabilities. In 2003, WTO estimated that the country is positioned 17th in the rank of largest exporters of the world.

The minister of trade announced that the country has the potential to gain thousands of dollars once it has access to the regime and the world markets. The government is concerned to reach out to as many countries as possible to establish agreements on trade (Centre for International Development, 2004). The UK minister of Europe argued that the country shares many common interests as well as many common challenges with the countries of Europe like Britain (UK House of Lords: European Union Committee 2009, p.32). The point reflected by the minister was the general policy attitude of the UK to pursue relations with Russia will be beneficial for both countries.