TODAY.AZ / Business

Two counties interested to start negotiations with Azerbaijan in WTO

24 June 2016 [12:55] - TODAY.AZ

/By Azernews/

By Amina Nazarli

The next round of the multilateral and bilateral talks on Azerbaijan’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) is scheduled for July 21-22 in Geneva.

Deputy Head of Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry Mahmud Mammad-Guliyev said that the Azerbaijani government has sent to the WTO Secretariat the responses to the questions of WTO member states, the documents developed as part of improving the country’s legislation and the decisions adopted in the trade and economic sphere, new proposals on goods and services.

The deputy minister noted that aside from the meeting with the WTO working group, it is planned to hold multilateral talks on the sphere of agriculture.

In this regard, Azerbaijan has presented to the WTO Secretariat the changes in agricultural subsidies over the last three years, he added.

Mahmud Mammad-Guliyev noted that Russia and Saudi Arabia have offered to the Azerbaijani government to start bilateral negotiations in the framework of the country’s accession to WTO.

He emphasized that the two counties are interested to start negotiations in service filed.

“These countries want to get an initial negotiating rights in the case Azerbaijan changes rates for some commodity items, so that to be the first to negotiate on this issue,” he told Trend.

This means that if a country previously granted trade concessions on a specific product, decides to cancel or change them, it must first negotiate with the member of the WTO, which has initial negotiating rights on the product, as well as members, recognized by the principal goods suppliers, and to consult with other members having a substantial interest in this product.

In accordance with the current practice, the pre-emptive right to negotiate is given to a country, if the proportion of goods exported in its total imports exceeds 30 percent.

The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Russia amounted to $739.8 million in January to May 2016. Russia is one of the main foreign trade partners of Azerbaijan and ranks second with a weight of 11.59 percent of the country's total trade turnover.

Among importers, Russia leads the first place with a share of 18.3 percent, and ranks the eighth in the list of Russia exporters with 4.27 percent.

Unlike Russia, Saudi Arabia is not included in the list of key foreign trade partners of Azerbaijan, and the bilateral trade turnover made up $3.78 million in he first five months of May 2016.

Azerbaijan holds a status as observer country at the WTO since 1997. The Azerbaijani working group under the WTO secretariat was established on July 16, 1997.

Baku has begun negotiations with the WTO member countries in 2004. At present, the country is in the process of holding negotiations with 19 countries.

The latest member of the organization Russia formally expressed a will to commence negotiations with Azerbaijan but the proposals from the country has not received as stated by the Deputy Foreign Minister.

Azerbaijan has accomplished negotiations and signed protocols with Turkey, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan.

URL: http://www.today.az/news/business/152056.html

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