Azerbaijan, Baku / Trend corr. I.Khalilova / The Czech Republic is ready to back Azerbaijan to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), Heydar Babayev, the Azerbaijani Minister of Economic Development and chairman of the State Committee to Prepare for WTO Membership, said after meeting with the Czech Foreign Minister, Tomas Polar.
Azerbaijan keeps bilateral negotiations with a range of countries. The government has already completed negotiations with Oman, Georgia, Moldova, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates on the issue.
According to Babayev, Azerbaijan continues bilateral negotiations on trade and rendering services with Japan, Canada, South Korea, Taiwan and a range of other countries.
"The fifth round of negotiations with WTO's task group will be held by the end of the year," Babayev said.
Azerbaijan has been held four meetings with WTO so far. The first two meetings were dedicated for discussions of foreign trade regime, and beginning from 2005 Azerbaijan held full scale negotiations during the latest two meetings. The main issues of bilateral negotiations are accession of commodities and services into Azerbaijan market, multilateral and domestic support of agricultural and export subsidies in this sphere.