Russia counts on Kazakhstan's early accession to WTO - Shuvalov
MOSCOW. March 2 (Interfax) - Russia hopes Kazakhstan will soon finalize the talks on its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister and Customs Union Chairman Igor Shuvalov said.
Russia has settled most of the disagreements hampering its accession to the WTO, and Kazakhstan is doing the same work, he said on the television channel Vesti 24. "We have agreed on what should be done to allow Kazakhstan to finalize its accession formalities as quickly as possible after Russia joins the WTO, Shuvalov also said.
Tactically, the simultaneous accession of all three states [Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan] would be the best option. But when this issue was being discussed with WTO officials, the parties ran against a large number of technical problems. "There has never been a precedent of this sort. In order to continue the accession without extending it to many years we have agreed with Kazakhstan and Belarus that our joint negotiating group will remain active. We are not concealing anything from each other and we have been coordinating all our steps," Shuvalov said.
Talks are underway with Kazakhstan to change the uniform customs tariff within the framework of the WTO accession process, he said.