Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

The development of the road map on the accession of Kyrgyzstan to the Customs Union which unites Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia will be completed in August 2013 and then the document will be sent for study and adoption of the member - states, Kyrgyz Telegraph Agency quoted deputy economic minister of Kyrgyzstan, Oleg Pankratov, as saying.

The working group of the Eurasian Economic Committee has held six meetings to discuss the development of the road map on the accession of Kyrgyzstan to the Customs Union, Pankratov said.

He went on to say that the session of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council with participation of the presidents of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia will be held in October and December 2013. It is expected that the presidents will study the road map and adopt the document.

The road map envisages the preparatory measures in the field of sanitation, veterinary, customs legislation and infrastructure, technical regulation, customs - tariff and non - tariff regulations, trade and finance policy, intellectual property, application of special protective, antidumping and compensation statistics, transport and communications.

The Customs Union was established in 2010 between Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. The purpose of the Customs Union is the formation of a single customs territory, within which no customs duties or economic limitations are applied. The single economic space of the Customs Union started operating on January 1, 2012.

The experts believe that the accession of Kyrgyzstan to the Russia-backed Customs Union will lead to many negative consequences, including significant increase of prices in the country and thus, Kyrgyzstan will become dependent on other members of the organization.

However, other experts think that after joining the union, Kyrgyzstan will have the opportunity to receive raw materials from the organization's member-states in a more profitable way.

The Kyrgyz government believes that the country is a favorable transit country and an object for making investments to the Customs Union. It was reported in May that Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev doubts that Kyrgyzstan will join the Customs Union in 2015.

"The date of Kyrgyzstan's joining the Customs Union is 2015. This date is desirable for the country's leadership. However the desire alone is not enough," Atambayev said.

In April Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that Russia fully supports Kyrgyzstan's efforts to join the Customs Union. However, according to Medvedev, Kyrgyzstan still had to sign "64 more documents" before joining the union.