CIS countries are not ready to sign Free Trade Agreement

As of May 2011 CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries are not ready to sign the Free Trade Agreement, a Tengrinews.kz journalist reports from Minsk. “A lot of issues are not quite solved, this is an obstacle to signing of the agreement by all members. The decision has been made to review the agreement draft and solve the issues at the next sitting of CIS Economic Council,” participants of the sittingz of the Council of CIS Heads of Government said. Belarus PM emphasized that the free trade zone is not a political decision. As per PM Mikhail Myasnikovich, it should become a solution for economic issues. “It is important that creation of the free trade zone does not make any of the member-countries face deterioration of of their budgets through third countries,” Myasnikovich said at the press-conference after the Council's meeting. As per Myasnikovich, trade conditions in the planned zone should be close to the WTO standards. “Especially in case of those four CIS countries that are members of the WTO,” noted Belarus PM. The Free Trade Agreement is scheduled to be signed in October 2011. “The challanges are vincible,” a member of the Minsk meeting said answering the question about bottlenecks of the free trade zone. According to Mikhail Myasnikovich, “Azerbaijan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have some issues to resolve (related on conditions of the free trade area).” The next meeting of the Council is scheduled to be held in Saint-Petersburg in October 2011.