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WTO Director General recommends Russia step up integration with EU

Pascal Lamy said 80% of biggest transactions in the world economy are made outside Russia, Argentina, Africa, or the Persian Gulf countries

St PETERSBURG, June 20 (Itar-Tass) - Director General of the World Trade Organization, Pascal Lamy, said here Thursday it would be highly advisable for Russia to set up integration with the European Union.

As he took the floor at a roundtable conference on regional economic associations that is held in the format of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum /SPIEF/, he said 80% of biggest transactions in the world economy are made outside Russia, Argentina, Africa, or the Persian Gulf countries, and hence it would be worthwhile for Russia to look at the root-causes of the situation.

Lamy surmised that the world will come to the importance of global economic integration one day or another and regional integration in this sense continues to be the main type of behavior in the framework of overwhelming globalization.

If the hypothesis is true then the only possible option for Russia is to join in without holding negotiations, he said, adding that Moscow may face additional knotty problems if a fragmented regulatory system emerges.

Russia will have to get a role in this play for itself somehow and the most obvious outcome in the current situation is to give a new lease of life to a system of integration between Russia and the EU, he said.

Lamy said he is not sure whether or not Moscow will eventually created an integration system of the kind with China but anyway moving along this direction seems to be a strategic choice for the Russians, he said.

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