Azerbaijan, Baku, July 17 /Trend, I.Khalilova/
Finalizing the draft Treaty on Free Trade Zone of the CIS countries by the end of 2010 is not considered feasible, a source in the government of Azerbaijan said. July 15-16, Moscow hosted a meeting of the working group on preparation of the Treaty on Free Trade Zone of the CIS countries.
Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan participate in discussions over the treaty as an observer.
Azerbaijan has signed bilateral agreements with Belarus, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Moldova, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Turkmenistan and Ukraine, but these bilateral agreements are supposed to be cancelled within the discussion of the draft treaty.
"Such position of Azerbaijan [to act as an observer] is explained through disagreement with Russia's proposal to abolish all import duties, but fix the level of export duties on trade between themselves. Given the power of Russia in energy sector, yet it refuses to cancel export duties," the same source said.
In accordance with the current bilateral agreements on free trade zones, the structure of export of Azerbaijan includes practically no removal, but removal exists on only two goods (tobacco and denatured alcohol) with Russia and Kazakhstan. In this regard, the Azerbaijani government has preferred to assess the situation on the preparation of the treaty.
"Although the Russian side proposes to adopt it by the end of 2010, but this is unlikely to happen, it may take a year," said the government source.
Thus, in addition to the countries of Customs Union (Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus), Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan and Ukraine have joined the treaty.
Director of the trade negotiations department of the Economic Development Ministry of Russia Maxim Medvedkov said that as a result of the meeting of working group on preparation of the Treaty on the Free Trade Zone of the CIS countries, the parties "reached a draft agreement under which still there is a small number of differences".
He said that these negotiations are not attended by Turkmenistan. Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan participated as observers. According to him, these two countries plan to make a decision on accession to the treaty in the near future.
"Except Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, the CIS countries have agreed to lift almost all import duties and fix the level of export duties on trade among themselves, said Medvedkov. - This is the maximum and almost full elimination of import duties, but we want to fix export duties at the level at which they are now. It is clear that Russia can not eliminate duties on crude oil, oil products and gas. Logic of negotiations is at least not to expand existing duty."
According to Medvedkov, it is planned that this treaty will replace the hundreds of documents managing trade relations between the CIS countries. The draft treaty includes a number of existing WTO rules and covers a range of issues relating to the abolition of customs duties and quantitative restrictions in mutual trade.
The document also regulates the rules of defining the origin of goods, restrictions on trade with third countries, freedom of transit, re-export, special safety measures, antidumping and countervailing regulators of mutual trade, competition and subsidies, technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures, customs control. The next meeting of the working group will be held September 8-9 in order to prepare a final document by the meeting of economy ministries of the CIS in Moscow on September 10.
The question of preparing the draft treaty on the free trade zone was included in the draft agenda of the next meeting of the CIS Economic Council on September 17, 2010.