DUSHANBE, November 15, 2011, Asia-Plus — Tajikistan is currently at the finishing stage of accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), Ms. Larisa Kislyakova, the deputy chairperson of Tajikistan’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) also former member of the Working Party on the accession of Tajikistan to WTO, said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
“Now the accession to this organization depends only on us,” said Kislyakova, “If we agree like Kyrgyzstan with all conditions of developed countries we will be admitted to the WTO even today. We are small country and we cannot influence world’s trade because we now have only five types of export products, mostly raw materials. They will admit us with pleasure because developed countries will have access to our resources.”
“Therefore, Tajikistan must drive a bargain in the course of ongoing bilateral negotiations with the WTO member nations,” said Tajik official, “Thus, we must asking for a longer transition period. Under the WTO conditions, certain tariffs must be lowered. The longer transition period the more time we have to lower these tariffs.”
According to Kislyakova, accession to the WTO will create attractive investment climate in Tajikistan. “Therefore, we will have to amend existing laws in order to bring them into compliance with international standards of attraction of investments. It means that our laws will be more transparent,” she said.
Kislyakova, however, added it could not be ruled out that domestic producers might suffer in some sectors. “Since our market will be open, competition will rise,” said she. “Therefore, our producers must pay attention to improvement of quality of their products.”
We will recall that the Working Party on the accession of Tajikistan was established by the General Council on 18 July 2001. Multilateral work is proceeding on the basis of revised Elements of a draft Working Party Report. Bilateral market access negotiations are underway on the basis of revised offers in goods and services. The Working Party held its sixth meeting in July 2011 to continue the examination of Tajikistan”s foreign trade regime.
At the sixth meeting of the Working Party on the accession of Tajikistan, WTO Members reportedly reviewed reforms undertaken by Tajikistan to its trade regime and evaluated the progress made on the bilateral market access negotiations for goods and services. WTO members welcomed Tajikistan’s commendable efforts towards membership. They appreciated the progress made in reforming its trade regime in order to be compatible with WTO rules.
While reviewing the first version of the draft Working Party Report, members identified areas that still required further work including antidumping, trading rights, investment regime, import licensing, rules of origin, sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, intellectual property rights, and services.
On market access negotiations for goods and services, Tajikistan and members reported good progress. Negotiations are on-going with 17 interested members.
