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Trade between Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia dropped by 15 percent in Q1, Belarusian prime minister says

 

Trade between Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia fell by 15 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2013, Belarusian Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich said during an international business forum in Minsk on Friday.

There was a similar decrease in trade between the member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Mr. Myasnikovich said. “This is very bad news,” he said.

Mr. Myasnikovich noted that it was difficult to reconcile the national interests of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia when it came to customs rates and expressed hope that the “intellectual potential” of the Eurasian Economic Commission would help solve the problem.

Mr. Myasnikovich stressed that the three countries should liberalize mutual trade if they wanted to have a common market.

He described Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization as inconsistent with common market plans. Although competition, both domestic and external, is healthy, and the opening of markets therefore makes sense, this might drive national companies out of the domestic market, Mr. Myasnikovich warned.

The government of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia should strike the right balance between the competition imperative and the interests of domestic companies, he said.

According to the Eurasian Economic Commission, two-thirds of the goods and one-third of the services move within the Common Economic Zone freely, which means that there is no real common market, Mr. Myasnikovich said. The real problem is the inability of domestic companies to compete and not excessive bureaucracy, he added. // BelaPAN