Tuesday June 9, 03:26 PM
Russia to seek WTO membership in regional bloc
MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan will seek World Trade Organisation membership as a single customs bloc, and accession talks as single states will now halt, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Tuesday.
Putin said the countries' prime ministers had decided at a meeting in Moscow "to inform the WTO about their intention to start a negotiating process for membership of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia as a single customs union."
"The governments will inform the WTO about the halt of the process for the membership of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia" as individual states, he added.
Belarus and neighbouring Russia already have a formal customs union, which Kazakhstan has said it also wants to join.
Russia is the largest world economy still outside the WTO. Initial membership negotiations began in 1993 but have been delayed by disputes over a variety of issues and were set back by Russia's war with Georgia last year.
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