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![Moscow is not yet ready to discuss a free trade agreement with Washington, but is “ready to talk a deal on protecting bilateral investment,” Shuvalov said [AP]](http://thebricspost.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/obamaputin.jpg)
Moscow is not yet ready to discuss a free trade agreement with Washington, but is “ready to talk a deal on protecting bilateral investment,” Shuvalov said. [AP]
“We have proposed…establishing a comprehensive economic agenda that would…mean creating a kind of a free trade zone by a certain period,” Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov told reporters in Washington on Wednesday.
Shuvalov has been talking to US investors, US Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker and US Trade Representative Michael Froman in New York and Washington during a three-day visit.
Russia-US ties have been under strain recently as the political deadlock in Kiev continues and over Moscow’s decision to grant temporary asylum to former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
Moscow is not yet ready to discuss a free trade agreement with Washington, but is “ready to talk a deal on protecting bilateral investment,” Shuvalov said.
The two sides have to first find a compromise to harmonize bilateral standards and ensure transparency of economic entities to achieve these gains, he stressed.
The Russian and US presidents are expected to discuss the proposals at the next G8 summit that will take place in the southern Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi in June 2014, Shuvalov said.
“Although it is not called a free trade agreement, in essence the creation of institutions means this,” Shuvalov said.
Russia finally entered the World Trade Organisation in 2012 after 19 years of protracted talks.
Source: Agencies
