CIS Free Trade Zone Agreement

1.       Ukrainian Parliament ratified a free trade zone agreement with CIS.  Free Trade Zone approved by The Economic Council of CIS members  that would move the CIS further toward liberazed trade. The agreement was signed in Oct 2011 with only Russia and Belarus having ratified.

2.       CIS includes :

-          Armenia,

-          Azerbaijan,

-          Belarus,

-          Kazakhstan,

-          Kyrgyszstan,

-          Moldova,

-          Russia,

-          Tajikistan,

-          Turmenistan,

-          Uzbekistan, and

-          Ukraine.

3.       The agreement stipulates cutting import duties to a minimum and suggests that export duties be harmonized and eventually abolished.

4.       Ukraine, whose trade with CIS amount to US$ 140 billion a year, also intends to go ahead with its plans to create a free trade zone with EU. Ukraine=-EU relations aere damaged by last year’s jailing of former PM Yulia Tymoshenko over a gas deal with Russia which was declared by the gov to have harmed the country’s economy.

5.       EU Authorities have declared Tymoshenko’s trial politically motivated and have called for her to be released.