Baku hosted workshop examining Azerbaijan's accession to WTO

The deputy U.S. Ambassador Mr. Donald Lu hailed President Ilham Aliyev's August decree to bring legislation inline with WTO standards and added that the US government supports Azerbaijan's accession efforts and rendered $3 million technical assistance.

Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, Mahmud Mammadguliyev, said Azerbaijan submitted proposals on goods and services to the WTO secretariat in 2005. Through bilateral negotiations, the proposals have been agreed with Georgia, Moldova, Oman and Turkey.

"Azerbaijan's proposals are so liberal. The import duty is 9.4 percent and bound tariff is 13.6 percent. As you see, our tariffs are very close to final tariffs," he noted.

He added that Azerbaijan submitted proposals on 100 types of services, APA reports.

He noted that the negotiations on agriculture subsidy component are ongoing.

"For product specific subsidy in the developed countries, it is 5 percent of the production of that product and, in addition, for non-product specific subsidy, it is further 5 percent of total agricultural production. For the developing countries, it is 10 percent of both. Our intention is to apply 10%. There is no objection," he added.

The Economic Development Ministry officer for WTO accession, Adalat Muradov, noted that more than 10 bills have been framed and submitted to the government after the said presidential decree.

"In total, it is planned to develop more than 40 bills," he added.
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Azerbaijan was granted observer status in 1997.