Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

A Kazakh politician has offered to set its own prices in the Eurasian Economic Union.

“Kazakhstan has all the chances to create within the Eurasian Economic Union, its so-called "exclusive" prices,” said Marat Shibutov, representatives of the Association of cross-border cooperation in Kazakhstan, Kazakh media reported.

On January 1, 2015 the treaty between the presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus authorizing the Eurasian Economic Union went into effect.

As Kazakhstan is a member of the EEU and Moscow is one of the largest partners of Astana, the Central Asia’s biggest country is strongly affected by the harsh economic situation in Russia caused by international sanctions.

“On its own market money runs in a circle. And the fact that somewhere became bad, they are not affected. We just need to close our circle, as we are affected by someone's bad situation. We have different degrees and different types of economic management from Russia and Belarus,” Shibutov said.

His comments came as a hard economic situation in Russia (because of sanctions over Ukraine) negatively impacted Kazakhstan’s economy. The dramatic fall of the Russian ruble made it difficult for Kazakh producers to compete with cheap Russian goods.

“For example, the latest news - the largest company bought our company, and now they have a Russian company and ours. Little by little businesses are established that create products on demand. I think we need a few corporations that give participatory interest. It would be better if it was a fertilizer market,” Shibutov said.

He added that in such a scenario, it is possible to create a variety of diversified industrial development, noting that Kazakhstan could use the old production chains of the Soviet Union.

“At the same time, it is also possible to copy a new economic union and receive Eurasian consortiums. Plus, no one will compete in the alliance and we will immediately improve the price. We would have a monopoly price,” Shibutov said.

High margin in the exchange rates in Kazakhstan and Russia caused a substantial difference in prices of similar goods in the two post Soviet countries. Kazakh citizens change exchange rate of tenge to rubles and go shopping in Russia, where the goods are much cheaper than in Kazakhstan due to ruble devaluation.

Earlier, some in Kazakhstan have suggested temporarily banning or restricting import of some goods from Russia to the country.

Also, a number of Kazakh entrepreneurs and economy experts proposed to restore customs posts between Kazakhstan and Russia.

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Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SaraRajabova

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