The agreement between Russia and the EU was reached yesterday, November 24, during negotiations about Russian membership in the World Trade Organization, WTO. Finland and Sweden have been pushing the issue for quite some time.“Russia's timber duty decision is a positive result from the perspective of the Finnish forest industry. According to the information available at the moment, effects of the duties will not focus on timber grades, which are imported into Finland, as heavily as before. Russian export duties on hardwood will decrease to a quarter of the current level. Duties on softwood will decrease by half," said Timo Jaatinen, Director General of the Finnish Forest Industries Federation.The decreased level of the wood Russian export duties will be implemented as Russia becomes a member of WTO during 2011, Swedish Minister of Trade, Ewa Björling, told Swedish news agency TT.The Swedish import of wood from Russia has declined by 80 peercent after the Russian export duties came into force. In Finland, which has been even more dependant on Russian timber and pulp wood, the Russian export duties could in the long run lead to risk of loss of more than 15,000 jobs.Over the long term, cooperation between the forest sectors of Russia and Finland is in the best interest of both countries. From the perspective of investments, the most critical issues are the removal of all business-negative export duties and trade barriers, a focus on the development of infrastructure as well as the establishment of sufficient guarantees to the continued and reliable supply of wood raw materials for decades to come, the Finnish Forest Industries Federation writes in a press release.