Customs control zone at the Nizhny Novgorod Oil and Butter Plant
Photo: Nikolay Cyiganov
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Customs Union Has No Members
The Russian Ministry of Economic Development and Trade has acknowledged that the formation of the Customs Union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan has been postponed indefinitely. It will be formed no sooner than Russia and Kazakhstan, and maybe Belarus, are admitted to the WTO, which can happen no sooner than the middle of 2008. Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov first suggested that the union should only be formed of WTO member states at the April Eurasian Economic Community negotiations in Astana.
Russia has completed bilateral negotiations on WTO accession and is ready for the final stage of the process, that is, the signing of a multilateral agreement. Kazakhstan is engaged in bilateral negotiations. The April round of negotiations between it and the United States, but the Kazakhs hope to complete negotiations with the Americans by the end of this year, which would make accession in middle or late 2008 possible. Belarus began WTO negotiations in 1993. It has completed bilateral negotiations with nine countries so far.
Deputy Economics Minister Vitaly Savelyev said that negotiations on the Customs Union were continuing on the expert level. The proposes considerably more liberal conditions for trade than the WTO, but Kazakhstan and Belarus want it to be even more liberal than Russia does. The former two countries want union members to have equal access to the infrastructure of the national oil and natural gas markets, which Russia has categorically refused. In addition, the future members have yet to agree on how the organization will make decisions.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of May 10, 2007
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