DUSHANBE, April 18, Asia-Plus – Prime ministers from member nations of the Eurasian Economic Community (EAEC) have gathered in the Kazakh capital city of Astana to discuss issues related to laying foundation of the Customs Union.
The source at the Tajik government said that 18 issues had been tabled to the meeting that is being held in Astana today. “The regulatory framework of the Customs Union of the Community is still being considered only by representatives of Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan,” said the source, “While other member nations of EAEC – Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — are still at the initial stage of consideration of this issue.”
The source added that prime ministers will also raise again the issue of rational use of water and energy resources in Central Asia.
According to the Tajik Ministry of Land Reclamation and Water Resources (MoLRWR), this issue causes many disputes between Central Asia’s countries and the problems of distribution of waters rise quarterly between the countries of the upper reaches of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers (Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan) and the countries of the lower reaches of the rivers.
The EAEC prime ministers are also supposed to consider the issue of use of single customs documents for transiting goods.
The Eurasian Economic Community (EAEC) was put into motion on October 10 2000
when Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan signed the treaty. EAEC was formally created when the treaty was finally ratified by all five member states in May 2001.
EAEC grew out of the CIS Customs Union. The members have also all agreed that EAEC should be merged with the Central Asian Cooperation Orgnaization (CACO). Uzbekistan applied for membership in October 2005 when the process of merging the CACO ad EAEC began. The organizations joined on January 25, 2006.
