MOSCOW, August 22. /TASS/. The actions of some countries regarding the Russia-targeted restrictions, which violate the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO), bolster cooperation within the framework of regional trade agreements, Head of the Trade Policy Department at the Higher School of Economics Maxim Medvedkov, who also served as the former head of the Economic Development Ministry’s trade talks department, said in an op-ed for TASS.
"The illegitimate actions of major WTO players are bound to affect the organization’s future, as it becomes more ambiguous, the more those players deviate from the rules and the longer it continues. <…> If this case is going to continue, many countries are likely to intensify cooperation within the framework of regional agreements," according to Medvedkov who headed Moscow’s delegation at the talks on Russia entering the WTO.
The expert called "the surge in energy and food prices, double-digit inflation, and foreign exchange fever" the main economic repercussions of the failure to observe the WTO’s rules now, characterizing all those factors as "the price the world is already paying for violating trade rules."