Azernews.Az

The project on improving the system of sanitary activities implemented by Germany in Azerbaijan this year is a major step toward the country's admission to the World Trade Organization (WTO), a German official says.
The representative of the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, Rudiger Ohst, told a news conference on the outcomes of the project on Friday that the initiative, financed by German technical cooperation bank GTZ, aimed to discuss the requirements set forth by the WTO Agreement on Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures and examine to what extent Azerbaijan's laws comply with it.
Under the 50,000 Euro project, experts analyzed the plight of logistics and human resource issues in local veterinary and phytosanitary laboratories. Based on the assessment, the government submitted to WTO a three-year program on developing a system to ensure the safety of animal and vegetative products in Azerbaijan.
Ohst expressed confidence that the 151 WTO member states would back the country's admission bid after familiarizing themselves with the program.
"I hope that Azerbaijan will become either the 152nd or the 153rd member state, and your country will be represented more successfully in world markets," the German official said.
Germany chairs the WTO taskforce working toward Azerbaijan's accession to the organization.
Azerbaijani officials say the country may become a WTO member state as early as in 2009.
The issues being discussed between the government and the group's experts include access of foreign goods and services to the domestic market, state subsidies to the agricultural sector, pricing, anti-monopoly, customs and taxation policy.
The country's accession largely depends on the position of the European Union and the United States, the key negotiators in WTO accession.
WTO states are looking to examine how liberal and transparent Azerbaijan's tariff policy is and whether or not it meets up-to-date requirements on common regulations for domestic and imported goods. The government is striving to assert the status of a developing nation in the process.
As for threats that WTO admission entails, applying common regulations on both local and imported commodities could deal a blow to national production, which the government would no longer be able to protect.