RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/ACC/SPEC/RUS/14  
18 May 2000 
 (00-2046) 
Working Party on the  
Accession of the Russian Federation Original:   English 
 
 
 
 
ACCESSION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION  
 
Domestic Support and Export Subsidies in Agriculture  
 
  The Permanent Mission of the Russian Federa tion has submitted the following information on 
the domestic support and export subsidies in agricultu re in the Russian Federation, with the request 
that it be circulated to members of the Working Party. 
 
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With the account taken of developments in  the multilateral/plurila teral and bilateral 
negotiations with the WTO members, the Russian delegation has worked out a revised proposal on 
domestic support and export subsidies in the area of  agricultural and food products.  
 In accordance with the WTO Agre ement on Agriculture and a relevant Technical Note by the 
WTO Secretariat (WT/ACC/4) the Aggregate Measu rement of Support (AMS) was calculated for the 
period of 1989 –1995 (see Annex), b earing in mind that at present there are no legal provisions with 
regard to the base period for commitments for acceding countries. 
 Taking full and scrupulous account of all relevant  developments in the Russian agricultural 
sector over the last decade the Government of th e Russian Federation believes that the period of 
1989 – 1995 (1988 – 1995 for export subsidies) should be taken in its entirety as the representative 
period for Russia.   
 
The AMS calculations incorporate both the federa l and the regional agriculture support data 
and are based on the information furnished by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, Ministry of 
Finance, the Ministry of Economy, the State Sta tistics Committee, the Land Policy Committee and the 
Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences. 
 
The following AMS supporting tables were submitted to the WTO Secretariat in 
October 1999 (Preliminary Calculation of Dome stic Support in Agriculture, Non-Paper dated 
26 October 1999): 
 
- Supporting table DS:1 (Measures exempt from the reduction commitment - "Green 
Box"); 
- Supporting table DS:4 (Calculation of the To tal Aggregate Measurement of Support); 
- Supporting table DS:5 (Product-Specific Aggregate Measurements of Support: 
Market Price Support); 
- Supporting table DS:6 (Product-Specific Aggregate Measurements of Support: Non-
Exempt Direct Payments); 
- Supporting table DS:7 (Product-Specific Aggregate Measurements of Support: Other 
Product-Specific Support and Total Product-Specific AMS); WT/ACC/SPEC/RUS/14 
Page 2  
 
- Supporting table DS:9 (Non-Product-Specific  AMS). 
 The domestic support measures ("green box" and "amber box" measures) were specified in 
the list of the programmes (Annexes 2.1-2.49) and were also submitted to the WTO Secretariat in 
October 1999 (as a non-paper). 
 
The export subsidies proposal is based on the official data of the sale for export by the 
Russian Federation Government of non-commercial st ocks of agricultural products at a price lower 
than the comparable price char ged for the like products to buyers in the domestic market. 
 
Information on other forms of export subsid ies (i.e. payments on the exportation of 
agricultural produce that are financed by virtue of a Government’s action, as well as government-
mandated freight charges for export shipme nts) will be submitted in due course. 
 The domestic support and export subsidies co mmitments are measured both in national 
currency (in current prices) and USD by using the average annual exchange rate. 
    WT/ACC/SPEC/RUS/14
 Page 3ANNEX 
 
Domestic Support and Export Subsidies in Agriculture and Food Products  
 
 1988 1989 1990* 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995* 
Aggregate Measurement of Support: 
- billion Rubles  73.6 149.3 64.9 904.1 6,473.8 17,579.5 58,938.3 
- billion US$  116.9 257.4 37.1 4.7 6.9 8.0 12.9 
Export Subsidies: 
- million Rubles 686.4 1,044.7 1,20 6.2 167.8 558.6 7,065.6 173,120.1 461,449.1 
- million US$ 1,125.2 1,658.2 2,079.6 95.9 2.9 7.6 78.5 101.3 
Official average annual exchange 
rate (RUB/USD) 0.61 0.63 0.58 1.75 192.5 932.0 2,204.0 4,554.0 
 
 
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* The domestic support amount in 1990 and 1995 was heavily influenced by the extensive farm debt forgiveness.