By Robert Evans
GENEVA (Reuters) - China should be able to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) around the end of this year but Russia, the other big power bidding to enter, can expect a much longer wait, trade diplomats and officials said on Thursday.
They were speaking after the U.S. House of Representatives voted to grant Beijing permanent trading privileges, and as a Russian team in Geneva launched a major push in Moscow's seven-year effort to get into the WTO.
Mike Moore, director-general of the WTO, hailed the U.S. vote as a vital step toward Chinese participation in a system where all members agree to accept independent rulings in trade rows.
"This is a very important move for the United States and China, and for this organization," Moore told Reuters in an interview. "The idea that you now will eventually have a quarter of the world (China) coming under a rules-based system, a dispute settlement system, is a remarkable event," he said.
China "Pretty Close" To Entry
Moore said Chinese entry after a 14-year marathon of on-off negotiations was "pretty close" but he declined to predict when the remaining hurdles would be overcome.
Trade diplomats following the process closely said they doubted outstanding bilateral accords with five countries, including Mexico and Switzerland, and the vast amount of paperwork needed, could be completed in the near future.
"I think it could take till the end of the year," said Kare Bryn, current chairman of the 136-member WTO's ruling General Council and Norway's ambassador to the WTO.
U.S. ambassador Rita Hayes told Reuters she thought the process -- which includes compiling a detailed "protocol of accession" incorporating all liberalization commitments accepted by China -- could be over "by the autumn."
Bryn said the U.S. vote, though not strictly necessary for China's admission, would ensure an equal relationship in the WTO between two of the world's biggest trading powers and marked "a happy event" for the WTO.
In an interview with Reuters, he said he believed China would fit in quickly once it was a member. "They have had long experience in the negotiations and know exactly how the WTO works," Bryn added.
As diplomats and officials at the WTO's Geneva lakeside headquarters hailed the U.S. vote, which still has to clear final legislative hurdles in Congress, Russian officials arrived to continue their own negotiations.
Russia "Made Good Progress"
"We believe we have made good progress," said Roald Piskoppel, deputy trade minister and head of the team, referring to talks during the past week with officials from the United States, the European Union and other WTO powers.
Piskoppel, for the moment replacing veteran Russian negotiator Gyorgy Gabunya who died last year, told Reuters Moscow had now tabled its offer on the extent to which it would open its market for services to foreign firms.
U.S. trade officials said they had found the Russians working hard to move their process forward. "They have shown a lot of good will, but they still have a lot to do," Hayes said.
Moore said the situation with Russia, which has yet to negotiate any bilateral entry agreements with WTO countries, a process that took Beijing several years, was "more complicated" than that of China. "Russia herself has to accord a priority that at the moment I don't think they have done," he said.:
