The international conference on WTO membership arranged by the UN International Conference for Trade and Development (UNICTAD) is ending in Baku today.
Officials of Azeri Foreign Ministry told Trend the participating at the conference are officials of UNICTAD, countries within UN Special Program for Central Asia (SPECA) and various ministries and agencies of Azerbaijan.
The main objective of the event is the assistance to the countries joining WTO and exchange of experience with the countries that are already in. some of the participants, like Oman, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, are already with WTO.
The event, organized by Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan, is hosting nearly 60 guests from various countries.
Deputy Foreign Minister and communicator in WTO Mahmud Mammedkulv also informed the guests of the preparation to joining this association. The State Commission is planning to dispatch the answers to questions WTO member-countries made by September 15. The V stage of conversations under Azerbaijan joining WTO is scheduled for late October or-November 2006.
Since 1997 Azerbaijan has been an observer in WTO and held 4 meetings with WTO officials to date. The first two of them were devoted to discussion of foreign trade, and the last two comprised full-scale conversations. The mutual conversations are held regarding the access to Azeri market of goods and services, as well as internal support to the agriculture and export subsidies in this field.
Within the multilateral talks, the questions have been submitted from Canada, USA, European Union, Turkey and Japan. For preparation to bilateral conversations questions submitted USA, Canada, the EU, Australia, Japan and China.