Belarus may enter WTO within 2 to 3 years

MINSK (BelTA) – The Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs believes Belarus may join the World Trade Organization in two or three years' time, Deputy Director of the Department for Foreign Economic Activity of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Valery Kolesnik told media ahead of the workshop on Market Access Map and Trade Map databases on 22 March, BelTA has learned.

According to Valery Kolesnik, Belarus has been long working on its WTO accession. In his words, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs pays a lot of attention to this work. “Our goal is to provide the modern practical instruments to the participants of the negotiation process,” noted Valery Kolesnik. He stressed that the databanks considered at today's workshop are new instruments promoting this negotiation process. “These databases contain full information based on official statistics, including that of the Belarusian National Statistics Committee,” he said.

Belarus applied for the WTO membership long time ago. However, the negotiation process has dragged on unfortunately, Valery Kolesnik noted. “Sometimes the talks were halted. Now we see that we can intensify the negotiating process. We hope to complete it as soon as possible. It can happen with two or three years. Our major goal is to agree on the terms which meet the national interests,” said the representative of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Partaking in the workshop are about 100 people, among whom are international experts, representatives of the National Academy of Sciences.