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3Most of Russians know that Russia has become a member of the WTO. However, what this abbreviation stands for is not known to half of the Russian population.

MOSCOW, August 27, 2012. Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) presents the data describing whether Russians know what the World Trade Organization is, as well as how many respondents know that Russia has joined the WTO.

The proportion of Russians who know what the WTO is makes up 40%. Most of them know what the abbreviation stands for: 24% say the WTO stands for “the world trade organization”, 10% say it deals with the trade with foreign countries; other 9% report the organization regulates trade relations between countries. Only 1% believes that the abbreviation stands for “the all-Russian trade organization”.

In spite of the low level of awareness about the WTO, most of Russians know that Russia has recently joined this organization (70%), including 19% of those who are well informed about that, 51% of those who heard about that in general. Those who are best informed are respondents aged 35-44 (77%), Muscovites and St. Petersburgians (78%), as well as Russians with high level of income (76%). One-quarter of Russians have learned about Russia`s accession during the survey (26%): they are basically young Russians (40%), residents of small cities (33%) and respondents with low level of income (34%).

The initiative Russian opinion polls were conducted on August 18-19, 2012. 1600 respondents were interviewed at 138 sampling points in 46 regions of Russia. The margin of error does not exceed 3.4%.

Do you know what the WTO is? What does it deal with?

(open-ended question, any number of answers)

World Trade Organization

24

Trading with foreign countries

10

Regulating trade relations between countries

9

Establishing and regulating prices for goods

1

Organization that Russia has long been trying to join

1

All-Russian Trade Organization 

1

I only heard the name of it but I have no idea what it deals with

39

Other

2

Hard to tell / hear for the first time

21

Do you personally know/ have you heard or do you hear for the first time that Russia has joined the World Trade Organization after seventeen years of negotiations?

 (close-ended question, one answer)

 

Total respondents

Aged 18-24

Aged 25-34

Aged 35-44

Aged 45-59

60 and above

Yes, I know that

19

12

18

23

22

18

I heard something about that, but I do not know the details

51

45

54

54

51

50

I hear for the first time

26

40

25

20

23

29

Hard to tell

3

3

3

3

3

3

Do you personally know/ have you heard or do you hear for the first time that Russia has joined the World Trade Organization after seventeen years of negotiations?

 (close-ended question, one answer)

 

Total respondents

Moscow and St.Petersburg

Million cities

More than 500 thousand

100 - 500 thousand

Less than 100 thousand

Rural area

Yes, I know that

19

24

21

22

20

17

17

I heard something about that, but I do not know the details

51

54

46

52

56

47

53

I hear for the first time

26

19

31

24

20

33

27

Hard to tell

3

3

2

2

4

4

3

Note: Using materials from the site www.wciom.ru or wciom.com, as well as distributed by VCIOM, the reference to the source (or hyperlink for the electronic media) is obligatory!

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