Customs Union in talks to unify trade regulations with other countries

MINSK, 14 January (BelTA) – A united delegation of Belarus, Russia, and Kazakhstan is working hard to complete the unification of trade regimes of the Customs Union member states with foreign countries. The information was released by Andrei Savinykh, Head of the Information Office, Press Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus.

The spokesman pointed out that trade regulations had been unified with the CIS states, Serbia, and Montenegro. Work is in progress to create a free trade zone with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) which unites such developed nations like Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, and Lichtenstein.

Andrei Savinykh underlined the importance of the fact that work continues to prepare a free trade agreement with New Zealand. In his words, work will begin in the near future to prepare a similar agreement with Vietnam. The advisability of signing agreements with the ASEAN bloc, Egypt, Mongolia, India, Chile, Israel and other countries is being assessed.

The Press Secretary also said that thanks to last year’s efforts to remove antidumping and special protective measures they had managed to convince Ukraine not to prolong an antidumping measure against the export of Belarusian artificial fur and pile fabric. Apart from that, Ukraine had lifted a special protective duty from the export of Belarusian matches. The European Commission had stopped an antidumping investigation into the import of steel seamless pipes without launching antidumping measures.

Andrei Savinykh remarked that the revision of India’s antidumping measure against the import of acrylic yarn (OAO Naftan) and cord fabric (OAO Grodno Azot) had been initiated.