RS Brief news CIS will be a free trade zone

CIS will be a free trade zone

December 2011

On October 18th the Agreement of free trade zone in CIS was signed in Saint Petersburg, after 10-years working-out, during the summit of the heads of the CIS national governments.

The agreement was signed by the prime ministers of 8 out of 11 participating countries. These included Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan chose not to join the free trade agreement at this stage. This document is designed to become a basis of trade and economic relations of CIS-countries and to substitute some previous mutual and multilateral agreements in particular regarding cancellation of import and export tariffs for multiple groups of goods.

The Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he hopes that the creation of the free trade zone will constitute a qualitative leap in the development of trade relations between the nations of the commonwealth.