Azerbaijan, Baku / Trend corr. I.Khalilova / The Azerbaijani Government considers it unrealistic to hold the 5th round of negotiations with the World Trade Organization (WTO) Task Group by the end of 2007, Mahmud Mammadguliyev, head of the negotiation group and Deputy Foreign Minister, said
"The next round of negotiations is impossible as the final variation of proposals on tariffs for the WTO member-countries have not been developed. The issues are expected to be considered in the State Commission in the WTO in the near future," Mammadguliyev said.
The consultants of the United States Agency on International Development (USAID) render assistance to Azerbaijan. The WTO member-country experts propose issues on state control over prices, taxes and customs issues. Work on changes to Azerbaijani legislation in compliance with WTO demands has not been completed yet. There are plans to develop 40 new legislation acts and changes to the current legal act.
Azerbaijan should submit all the necessary documents to the WTO in order to hold negotiations five or six months beforehand.
Azerbaijan has held four meetings with the WTO so far. The first two meetings were dedicated to discussions on foreign trade regime, and starting from 2005 Azerbaijan held full scale negotiations during the last two meetings. The main issues of bilateral negotiations are accession of commodities and services into the Azerbaijani market, multilateral and domestic support of agricultural and export subsidies in this sphere.