DUSHANBE
, July 11,
Asia
-Plus –
Tajikistan
has an opportunity to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) within the next two or three years.
Sobir Qurbonov, an employee of the Dushanbe Office of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), remarked this in his interview with Asia-Plus today, noting that the Swiss Government last year awarded a grant of US$1.5 million to
Tajikistan
to provide technical assistance for joining the WTO.
According to him, at present Tajikistan has to tackle a series of problems for joining the WTO, including determining list of services’ sectors, to which foreign companies will have access, tightening control over quality of imported goods, and establishing dialogue between private sector and state.
“To bring domestic legislation into compliance with the WTO requirements Tajikistan has created a system of regulation of external trade, adopted new editions of the Tax and the Customs Codes, drafted and adopted appropriate laws,” said Mr. Qurbonov, “However, actually it has turned out that this does not work effectively.” “At present not only the legislative environment in
Tajikistan
is important for the WTO member nations but also to what extent all this works.”
According to him, one of the main reasons for problems rising with observance of laws in
Tajikistan
is corruption, poor public management and low level of training of personnel.
Mr. Qurbonov said that all these and other issues were discussed at a roundtable meeting entitled “Process of Tajikistan’s Joining the WTO: Positive and Negative Effects” that was held in
Dushanbe
today.
The meeting participants included representatives from
Tajikistan
’s government, relevant ministries and organizations, as well representatives from international organizations and private sector.
Experts hold that admission to the WTO will give an opportunity to
Tajikistan
to have improved access to export markets, and the WTO will play an important role in strengthening transparency of access to market.
We will recall that for the purpose of speeding reforms and achieving sustainable macroeconomic growth as well as reducing poverty
Tajikistan
’s government in May 2001 applied to the WTO Secretariat expressing intention to join this Organization. In July of the same year, the WTO General Council made a decision to set up a working group for
Tajikistan
’s joining the Organization and to give it an observer status. To date,
Tajikistan
has already conducted negotiations on access to the market of goods and services with a number of WTO member nations including
Australia
, the
United States
,
Turkey
,
Switzerland
,
Estonia
and
Japan
.
