U.S. President Barack Obama voiced strong support for Russian membership in the World Trade Organization as he laid out an overhaul of export controls to help U.S. high-tech firms increase foreign sales.

Obama aims to double U.S. exports within five years. He announced a long-delayed free trade deal with South Korea, and said deeper economic ties with Russia were also in U.S. interests.

"I believe that Russia belongs in the WTO and we should support all efforts to make that happen," Obama said at a meeting of his Export Council of advisers. "Welcoming Russia to the WTO would be good for them, but it would also be good for us and good for the global economy."

Russia's $1.2 trillion economy is the largest outside the WTO. Its goal is to join by the end of next year.

The World Bank has estimated its entry could increase Russia's gross domestic product by as much as 3.3 percent in the medium term and 11 percent in the long term.

Obama said he thought Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was "doing important work trying to reform and move Russia forward on a whole host of issues, and I told him that the United States would be a partner with him in that effort."

Russian WTO Entry
Obama and Medvedev in June set a Sept. 30 deadline for resolving bilateral issues that blocked Russia's entry.

The two sides made significant progress, but the United States still has a few issues that need to be addressed, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk told the Export Council.

"I would say to Russia's credit we were probably 95 percent-plus successful" in resolving U.S. concerns over Russia's implementation of a bilateral market access deal the two countries struck in November 2006, Kirk said.

"I believe we are in a very good place," Kirk said.

The United States' remaining bilateral concerns include enforcement of intellectual property rights, trade in meat products and trade in products containing encryption technology, a USTR spokeswoman said.

The European Union said it had wrapped up its bilateral accession talks with Russia, after Moscow promised to reduce export taxes on timber and to lower fees on Asian freight reaching Europe via Russian railways.

Russia still needs to complete a multilateral agreement with all members of the WTO to achieve its goal of joining the world trade body by the end of 2011.

The United States is "working closely and cooperatively with Russia, and with all other WTO members" on that aspect of the talks, the USTR spokeswoman said.

During his remarks, Obama also announced a first set of guidelines for what U.S. products should be subject to export controls in the future and the licensing policies that will apply to them.

His administration is seeking comment from industry about the guidelines.

The measures to overhaul Cold War-era regulations respond to complaints by U.S. defense and high-tech companies that say the export controls cost them billions of dollars in lost sales.

U.S. allies also say they often face long waits to get spare parts for U.S.-made weapons systems because of licensing requirements as rigorous as those for the weapons themselves.

"The announcement is very positive news," said John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers. "Manufacturers are pleased the administration listened to the business community and is moving forward with the most sweeping export control reform in the last 50 years."

Big U.S. defense manufacturers such as Boeing, Honeywell and United Technologies are expected to benefit from the reforms, much of which the administration can implement without approval from Congress.

"We want input from businesses, from Congress and from our allies as we complete this reform," the president said. (Reuters)