DUSHANBE, January 23, Asia-Plus — Preparation of Tajikistan for joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) was focus of a meeting of President Emomali Rahmon with visiting head of the Working Party on the accession of Tajikistan to WTO, Klid Kull that was held in Dushanbe on January 23.
After a meeting with President Rahmon, Mr. Kull told journalists that that the Government of Tajikistan had confirmed its readiness to take measures to bring the country’s legislation into compliance with requirements of WTO standards.
According to him, the second stage of this process is under way. “During the first stage, we familiarized ourselves with Tajikistan’s laws and now specific political decisions are needed to bring them into compliance with the WTO standards,” said Kull. “As soon as we receive the Tajik government’s response, we expect it to come in the near future, the next formal meeting of the Working Party will be held in four or six weeks after receiving the response.”
“The second issue we discussed today is significance of integration of Tajikistan into all world trade, political and economic structures,” Mr. Kull said noting that Tajikistan plays an important stabilizing role in the regional particularly in its southern direction – Afghanistan and Pakistan.
We will recall that after the third formal meeting of the Working Party, Tajikistan took necessary measures to remove obstacles on the way of the accession of Tajikistan to WTO, which were mentioned at the meeting. Among them are issues related to reforming the commodity-and-raw-materials exchange, licensing transparency, export/import of alcohol drinks and so forth.
The third formal meeting of the Working Party was held in Geneva on October 6, 2006. The meeting in Geneva focused on the regime of foreign trade of Tajikistan.
The Working Party on the accession of Tajikistan was established by the General Council on July 18 2001. A Factual Summary of Points Raised (summarizing the discussions of the group) was circulated informally in April 2005 and revised in May 2006. Negotiations conducted in October 2006 discussed revised offers on goods and services.
