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News

Gurianov: WTO regulations to take full effect in SES 1 September

MINSK, (BelTA) – Regulations of the World Trade Organization (WTO) will take full effect in the Single Economic Space (SES) on 1 September 2012, Deputy Foreign Minister of Belarus Alexander Gurianov said at an extended meeting of the standing committee at the Advisory Board for Foreign Investments under the Council of Ministers of Belarus on 28 June, BelTA learnt.

“The issue of the WTO accession is closely connected with the work we are doing in the Customs Union (CU) and the SES. The ‘troika” agreed that if one of the SES member states joins the WTO, we will take the WTO obligations into account in our integration project. Therefore, the Russian Federation is about to finally ratify a package of commitments on the WTO accession and we expect that the WTO regulations will take full effect on the SES territory on 1 September,” Alexander Gurianov noted.

From the very beginning the ‘troika’ allowed for incorporating the WTO regulations into the Customs Union legal framework. “Now we are working on the aspects we previously missed and they will gradually be included into the legal system of our integration project,” he added.

According to Alexander Gurianov, Russia has thoroughly analyzed the consequences of its accession to the WTO. “Everybody came to the conclusion that nothing bad will happen,” the Deputy Foreign Minister underscored. According to experts, Russia’s GDP will contract by no more than 0.5% after its accession to the WTO. Belarus continues assessing the impact on its economy of Russia’s accession to the WTO, Alexander Gurianov added.

Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan finished amending the single customs tariff with regard to Russia’s accession to the WTO. “Yesterday we finished the work to introduce amendments to the single customs tariff of our tripartite integration project. The business community should get prepared for the changes that will come into force somewhere on 1 September after Russia will assume new obligations as a WTO member. We will soon adopt the document. Before it comes into force, there will be an opportunity to learn about the changes in the tariff protection,” Alexander Gurianov said.