Azerbaijan to hold bilateral talks on WTO accession

The Azerbaijani delegation headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Mahmud Mammadguliyev will visit Geneva to hold bilateral negotiations on the country's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Elman Abdullayev said at a briefing today.

"The consultations on WTO accession between Azerbaijan's negotiating group and four countries - the U.S., China, Canada and Brazil will be held on July 24-28 with," Abdullayev said.

This will be the second meeting of Azerbaijan's negotiating group on WTO membership this year.

Azerbaijan held bilateral talks with the U.S., EU, Norway, Canada, Ecuador and Japan within the IX round of multilateral talks on Azerbaijan's membership in the WTO in February 2012.
Azerbaijan has been represented at the World Trade Organisation as an observer since 1997 and began negotiating in 2004. Azerbaijan holds bilateral negotiations with the United States, Japan, Brazil, Ecuador, Sri Lanka, European Union, Norway, India, South Korea, Taiwan Province of China, Canada and Switzerland for today.

Negotiations with Turkey, the Sultanate of Oman, United Arab Emirates, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan have been completed and protocols were signed. The country is in the process of signing the protocol with Moldova, which still considers the document.

Within the talks Azerbaijan continues working on adjusting national legislative base in accordance with the WTO requirements as well as on improving current trade regime. About 40-50 legislative acts should meet requirements of the organizations and 30 of them have already been unified and work in this direction will continue this year.

The working group on Azerbaijan to the WTO was established on July 16, 1997.

Azerbaijan has been represented at the World Trade Organisation as an observer since 1997.


/Trend/