DUSHANBE, October 19, 2011, Asia-Plus — Eight member nations of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) signed a free-trade agreement in St. Petersburg on October 18.
The pact was signed by prime ministers of Russia, Armenia, Moldova, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Belarus. Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan did not sign the agreement but said they would consider doing so before the end of the year.
The treaty, signed by CIS prime ministers on Tuesday, is yet to be ratified by member states.
Russia news agency, RIA Novosti, reports the agreement eliminates export and import duties on a host of goods. It also contains a number of exemptions that will ultimately be phased out.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin noted that the trade pact would strengthen bonds in the loose regional grouping. He said the pact, due to take effect in January, would replace a 1994 deal that some CIS members never ratified.
It is t be noted that the CIS has been trying to form a free trade zone since as far back as the early 1990”s and held a summit in Moscow in May, in which a draft agreement was presented, but there was no final signature. Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia formed their own Customs Union earlier this year and scrapped interstate customs tariffs.
The 58th meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of Government that kicked off in St. Petersburg yesterday is continuing its work today. CIS prime minister will discuss Russian premier’s proposal to create the Eurasian Economic Union within the post-Soviet area, RIA Novosti reports.
We will recall that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in early October called for the “Eurasian Union” of former Soviet republics along the lines of the European Union. Mr. Putin said the bloc would become a major global player. He said Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan were already going ahead with economic integration. However, he denied proposing to re-create the Soviet Union, saying a new bloc would have different values. “There is no talk about rebuilding the USSR in one way or another,” he said in an article in the daily newspaper Izvestia on October 4.
“It would be naive to try to restore or copy something that belongs to the past, but a close integration based on new values and economic and political foundation is a demand of the present time.” He said the “Eurasian Union” would build on the experience of the European Union and other regional coalitions. Putin said the aim was to “create real conditions to change the geopolitical and geoeconomic configuration of the entire continent and have an undoubtedly positive global effect.”
The CIS was created in 1991 as the Soviet Union was collapsing and grew to include all former Soviet republics except the three Baltic states. Georgia quit the CIS in 2008.
