Oleg Deripaska: Russia’s WTO membership to open doors for British businesses
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 31.12.2011 |
The Sunday Telegraph's Business Editor Kamal Ahmed caught up with Oleg Deripaska while he was in London for the concert of the Moscow Soloists, supported by his charitable foundation Volnoe Delo. Mr Ahmed talk to Mr Deripaska about how Russia will position itself in today's changing world economic order.
On WTO membership:
"For the West it is very important. It is a commercial agreement, it is dispute resolution, it is the acceptance of a lot of standardised procedures, which helps to reduce barriers on trade."
"If you are reasonable it will help you to add a positive score to Russia. It is one step for Russia to become a market economy and to become more integrated in the global economy. Russian industry is not so diversified and is not very competitive, this is a challenge for us. It will raise the level of competition tremendously."
On the Russian economy:
"What is important to understand is that we [Russia] have a very healthy budget. Almost no deficit - we have public debt to GDP around 12pc, total debt to GDP of 27pc, unique numbers. We have more than $580bn [in] reserves."
"If you look at the Russian market we are hungry, for everything. Look at cars - car production this year is up 26pc or more. If you look at the housing market it is a tragedy all around the world, in the US, in Europe. In Russia, occupancy is more than 95pc - you do not have enough free apartments."
On the aluminium industry:
"[There will be] more shut-down and moth-balled capacity next year because the cost is too high to justify today's pricing. Then there will be a new balance in the market. Six months it will be volatile, then more balance, then I believe the euro will adjust and that will bring more confidence and industry will be less concerned about working capital."
Read the full article here.
The Sunday Telegraph
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