This opinion, as Business portal Kapital.kz informs, was expressed by Alexei Likhachev the deputy minister of economic development of Russia. After two months the ninth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) will be held in Indonesia. During this meeting one may take a decision concerning joining to WTO.

This was information was presented by Alexei Likhachev, the Deputy Minister of Economic Development of Russia in an interview with Prime agency. Alexei Likhachev said that all “depends on the major players.” Meanwhile, Russia has two serious questions to the WTO.

“As I have said, it is the need for greater attention to regional integration in terms of monitoring the regulatory framework and in terms of involvement of countries into discussion and development of trade. And the second is “friendliness” towards to acceding countries. We well know this rigidity in own practice, and the tradition is that the admission of new members to the organization is becoming tough. This is not entirely correct, since the task of  WTO is to be a universal organization, and hence the major economies such as Kazakhstan should be adopted, and one should not try to block it,” he said.

Earlier, Andrey Slepnyov, the Minister of Trade of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) also informed that a decision on Kazakhstan’s accession to WTO may be taken at the Ministerial Conference in December 2013. Kazakhstan’s accession is at the final stages. We hope that at the December WTO Ministerial Conference one will be able to complete this process. Efforts of both Kazakhstan and Russia are invested in this project,” he said.

According to expert opinion, in the accession to WTO at the first stage, the main risk is that Kazakhstan is not ready to compete against other countries in the production of manufacturing industry. “We expect serious complications for local manufacturers of this part of the industry. On the other hand, the share of processing in total industry in the country is scanty and mainly exists due to the state support. Therefore, a significant impact on the domestic industry is not expected, since the entry into WTO does not imply voluntary and momentary abandonment of support from the government,” Zhannoor Ashigali, a senior analyst at the Agency for Investigation of Investment Profitability said.

Arman Sharipov, the Deputy Head of the department of examination and implementation of projects of National Agency for the development of national content JSC (NadLOCK) said that after the accession of Kazakhstan to the World Trade Organization, the country will retain the ability to protect the interests of domestic producers of goods and services. “After the accession to WTO, our country will have methods to protect domestic producers. There are requirements of all kinds that can artificially close the access of foreign producers. I mean legitimate requirements”, Arman Sharipov said.

Source: Business portal Kapital.kz.