News

Andrey Slepnev, Minister in charge of Trade of the Eurasian Economic Commission, spoke at the meeting of the Committee on Integration, Trade and Customs Policy and WTO of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RUIE). According to Alexey Mordashov, Chairman of the Committee, the theme of the meeting, dedicated to trade negotiations of the Eurasian Economic Union, was chosen due to the great interest of the business community in broadening cooperation through the use of free trade areas.

In particular, Andrey Slepnev informed on completing the work on a full-fledged free trade agreement with Iran, the signing of which is scheduled for the end of December this year. "We have reached ambitious targets for tariff liberalization: almost 90% of the nomenclature of goods will be traded duty-free. This will enable to save up to 380 mln dollars annually on duties when exporting to Iran," the Minister noted.

In addition to exclusive conditions for market access, which no one else in the world has today, he drew attention to the provisions in terms of sectoral cooperation, which could bring the interaction between our countries to a qualitatively new level. Given the importance of project implementation in the context of the North-South ITC development, the agreement includes provisions on creating a special platform for discussing issues of transport cooperation and transit. 

Speaking about trade negotiations with Indonesia, Andrey Slepnev reported on the three rounds which resulted in significant progress in harmonizing the regulatory part of the agreement. "We are aware of the EAEU potential in terms of increasing the share of high-tech exports, including products of the industrial complex, software, products of machine-building and other industries," the Minister said.

He emphasized that along with the Vietnam Agreement already in force, the arrangements with Indonesia would strengthen the Union's trade and economic positions in the ASEAN countries' markets and the entire Asia-Pacific region. Along with that, there is a possibility of increasing trade with Indonesia up to 50% of the current level, which will depend, inter alia, on how actively the business community will use the preferences created for it.

"As for the United Arab Emirates, owing to the constructive approach of both parties and the significant benefits from transiting to a preferential trade regime, we have achieved significant success in building a dialogue with our partner and confirmed our interest in holding negotiations in an accelerated format," Andrey Slepnev continued. 

The EAEU sees the prospect of entering into an agreement with the UAE as strengthening the position of the Union's exporters in the entire Gulf region. An arrangement has already been reached to form platforms for interaction on economic cooperation and on small and medium-sized enterprises of the parties.

Separately, the RUIE Committee meeting touched on the risks and possible areas of cooperation in the field of climate regulation. This entailed preventing barriers within the EAEU as well as preserving the competitiveness of national economies within the technological transformation at the external boundaries.

"After identifying these risks in June 2023, the Heads of Government of the EAEU Member States adopted an important instruction to work out approaches to regulate the climate agenda within the EAEU, which should lay the foundation for carbon regulation in the Eurasian space," Andrey Slepnev emphasized.