Putin pushes Russia's OECD membership
MOSCOW, Feb 14 (Reuters - President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he hoped Russia would soon be able to join the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), showing his impatience over the protracted nature of their negotiations.
"We hope that this gets done some day," Putin said at a meeting in the Kremlin with Angel Gurria, secretary general of the OECD, a Paris-based club of rich economies.
Russia, which joined the World Trade Organization last year, is taking cautious steps towards integrating its $2.1 trillion economy into global markets and trade.
Moscow is working to harmonise its economic policy, oversight and statistics with OECD standards with a view to joining the group more than two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its command economy.
Gurria said "conditions are ripe" for Russia to join the OECD, but changes to legislation would be needed to complete the process. He was in Moscow for a meeting of finance officials from the Group of 20 leading developed and developing economies, which is being chaired this year by Russia.
(Reporting by Alexei Anishchuk; Writing by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Kevin Liffey)