Azernews.Az

By Nazrin Gadimova

Globalization and involvement in international developments are very beneficial for the countries of the region, according to the head of Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO) Rufat Mammadov.

Mammadov made the remarks in a speech at the opening of a two-day international conference, "International Trade Law in the Region of the Caucasus and Central Asia: between Regional Integration and Globalization", in Baku on May 30.

The AZPROMO head said various aspects of economic and trade legislation will be discussed during the conference. He also said there were other initiatives and some of them had not only economic but also political implications.

"However, a variety of projects and initiatives in the region encourage the development of trade legislation," Mammadov said.

He said many countries are seeking to reform their trade laws in order to facilitate the trade regime, and the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia are no exception.

"The processes of regional integration and globalization are ongoing and will continue. Five of the nine countries in the region including Russia are members of the World Trade Organization (WTO). All countries of the region except Georgia are members of the CIS. The countries of the region have bilateral free trade agreements, and many of them are negotiating a free trade agreement with the EU," Mammadov said.

Five post-Soviet countries -- Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan -- have not acceded to the WTO.

The conference was organized by the University of Kiel and the Academy of Public Administration under the President of Azerbaijan in cooperation with the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR), Ural State Law Academy and the Kazakh National University.

The conference deals on a comparative basis with international trade issues in the regions of the Caucasus and Central Asia. The first part of the conference is devoted to the WTO's relations with the countries of the region -- both WTO member states and those in the process of accession talks. One of the key areas which will be extensively discussed at the conference covers trade in goods.