Kazakhstan is Ready to Join WTO

Kazakhstan completed negotiations of its membership in the World Trade Organization in the framework of a special working group set up in 1996. According to the press service of the WTO, Kazakhstan will be the 162nd member of WTO at the organization’s 10th ministerial conference in Nairobi in December.

“I congratulate the WTO’s member countries and the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan in this historic step,” said Roberto Azevedo, Director-General of the World Trade Organization.

Kazakhstan was negotiating on accession to the WTO over 19 years. A package of documents of accession will be submitted for formal approval by the working group, and then submitted for adoption by the General Council of the Organization on June 22.

The press service noted that the complexity and uniqueness of Kazakhstan’s accession process was a mandatory negotiation about tariffs related to its membership in the Eurasian Economic Union.

“WTO’s membership is a prestige for Kazakhstan. Mostly it is a political issue, because Kazakhstan is positioning itself as a leader in Central Asia, and it is unlikely to be outside the WTO, since its members make up a large part of the world. This organization’s requirements show that Kazakhstan is not a pariah, and is not on the sidelines of global economic processes,” said Eduard Poletaev, political expert and Editor-in-Chief of the World of Eurasia magazine.