WTO formally approves Kazakhstan's accession as 162^nd member

    The General Council of the World Trade Organization, the highest decision-making body of the organization, on Monday unanimously adopted the accession protocol allowing Kazakhstan to be the 162^nd member of the international institution that governs world trade.
    After almost 20 years of negotiations, the Eurasian country's accession was completed Monday with a vote in the plenary session.
    The move was followed by the formal signing of the accession protocol by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and WTO director-general Roberto Azevedo.
    "As our president said, we are committed to further liberalizing our economy. And we will be able to do this also thanks to the changes we have made and continue to make to join the WTO," Kazakh Foreign Minister Erlan Idrissov said in a press conference.
    In the early 1990s, the country was among the last in the Soviet sphere, "and we are now the second-largest economy in the region after Russia," Idrissov said.
    Kazakh Economic Integration Minister Zhanar Aitzhanova, for her part, acknowledged that "much has to be done" to liberalize the economy but said that to adapt to WTO rules, officials will remove, "as soon as possible, subsidies for industrial products."
    Aitzhanova noted that 98 percent of trade was conducted with countries that were already WTO members and 50 percent was with European Union members.
    The economic integration minister said Kazakhstan expected GDP growth of 1.5 percent in 2015.
    Kazakhstan applied to join the WTO on Jan. 29, 1996, and for years negotiated to change tariffs and other trade barriers to comply with world body's resolutions.
    In the middle of the process, however, the country decided to join the Eurasian Economic Union and had to adopt the rules and standards of that customs union.
    The Eurasian Economic Union's members are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia.
    This meant that all previously reached agreements had to be renegotiated and the process of WTO accession was affected.
    Finally, in mid-June, the process was finished and a draft agreement was signed.
    Astana must now ratify the accession protocol, "something I hope will happen in the coming months and Kazakhstan can be accepted as the 162^nd member of the WTO at the ministerial meeting in Nairobi in December," Azevedo said.
    "Kazakhstan's accession brings us closer to the center of Central Asia," the WTO director-general said.
    Until Monday, the WTO had 161 members and 21 countries, including the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan, Belarus and Uzbekistan, were negotiating accession.
    Russia has belonged to the WTO since 2012, according to EFE.