Azerbaijan, Baku / Trend corr. I.Khalilova / Mahmud Mammadguliyev, Azerbaijan's Deputy Foreign Minister, stated on 9 August, that improvements in the Azerbaijani legislation allows for the next round of negotiations with the Task Group of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to be held by the end of 2007.
The process of unification of Azerbaijani legislation in compliance with the WTO's demands will be completed by the end of 2007.
Presently, active work is being held to improve responses to the questions put forward by WTO member-countries. The issue on service has already been submitted to the secretariat of the WTO," Mammadguliyev said.
The negotiation group of Azerbaijan on joining the WTO held an unofficial meeting of the task group in Geneva on 21 June. Up until now, Azerbaijan has held four meetings with the WTO. The first two were dedicated to the discussion of issues connected with the foreign trade regime. During the last two meetings, since 2005, the country has launched large-scale negotiations. The bilateral negotiations are held on issues on the access of goods and services to Azerbaijan's market, and the multilateral ones are held on the domestic support of the agriculture and export subsidies in this field.