Belarusian Foreign Ministry sees possible WTO accession in 2015
MINSK. April 2 (Interfax) - Belarus could join the World Trade Organization in 2015 if negotiations go well, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Guryanov told reporters on Tuesday.
"Kazakhstan, judging by everything, will resolve this issue by the end of this year. We, if we pick up the pace, could join the WTO by 2015," Guryanov said, adding that Belarus is unlikely to join the trade body in 2014.
Commenting on the status of the accession process, Guryanov said that "negotiations within the context of the working group will soon resume in Geneva." However, the process of joining the WTO is a "very complicated game, a very bureaucratized process," he said.
He indicated that the main barriers to WTO accession for Belarus are bilateral negotiations with the United States and the European Union. "We need to complete a large amount of bilateral negotiations, including the United States and the EU - these are very difficult negotiations," Guryanov said.
However, he said it would make sense for members of the Customs Union to successively join the WTO - first Russia, which joined last year, then Kazakhstan and then Belarus.