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Regional trade agreements and WTO accession of CIS countries

  • International Trends
  • Published:
Intereconomics

Abstract

The successor states of the Former Soviet Union which are today members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) for the most part began to liberalise their trade regimes in the early and mid-1990s. At the same time they have pursued two major long-term strategies in an attempt to foster their integration within the region and into the global trading system: First, various forms of bilateral and plurilateral regional trade agreements were formed. Secondly, with the exceptions only of Turkmenistan and Tadjikistan all CIS countries have applied for accession to the WTO. Given the plethora of bi- and plurilateral RTAs and arcane and inconsistent trade regulations, WTO membership is likely to be a sine qua non to rationalise the trade and integration strategies of the CIS countries.

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References

  1. WTO: Document facilities on accession negotiations (www.WTO/ACC/name of country/No. of country document); various released documents provided by CIS countries in the process of WTO accession on WTO homepage.

  2. C. Michalopoulos: WTO accession for countries in transition, Policy Research Working Paper No. 1934, The World Bank, Washington, D. C. 1998.

  3. S. Trofimovich, F.A. Antonovich: Conditions and perspectives of GATT/WTO membership of Ukraine. Report prepared for the TACIS-Project SIAFT 2000, Kiew/Moscow.

  4. O. Melyukhina, P. Wehrheim: Russian Agricultural and Food Policies in the Transition Period: Federal and Regional Responsibilities in Flux, Discussion Paper Series “Russia's Agro-food Sector in Transition”, Institut für Ernährungswirtschaft, Verbrauchslehre und Welternährungswirtschaft, Universität Kiel, No. 5, September 1996, 42 pp.

  5. WTO accession documents for Armenia (www.WTO/ACC/ARM/8, p. 39).

  6. For more details on these issues se TACIS-SIAFT 2001 (www.aris.ru/WIN_E/).

  7. WTO accession documents for Russia (www.WTO/ACC/RUS/9/Add.1, no. 83).

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Authors
  1. Michael Roberts
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  2. Peter Wehrheim
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Additional information

Michael Roberts was a trade expert in the EU TACIS project “Support to Improving Agricultural and Food Trade among the CIS countries”, Moscow, and is a consultant to the WTO. Peter Wehrheim is an associate Professor at the Institute for Economics, Agricultural Policy, and Policy Information Systems, University of Bonn, Germany. Both authors have been assigned to the project by AFC Consultants International GmbH, Bonn. AFC implemented the project in cooperation with ASA, Bonn, and Agritechno, Bruxelles Support by these firms is gratefully acknowledged. The interpretations expressed in this document are those of the authors alone and should in no way be taken to reflect the policies or opinions of the above-mentioned firms or the Commission of the EU.

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Roberts, M., Wehrheim, P. Regional trade agreements and WTO accession of CIS countries. Intereconomics 36, 315–323 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02930149

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02930149

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