Accession of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the World Trade Organization (WTO)

Kazakhstan started its process of accession to the WTO in 1996. The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade is designated by the Government of Kazakhstan as a main coordinating body for the country’s WTO accession negotiations.  During the last several years, Kazakhstan has made a significant progress in pursuing both bilateral and multilateral negotiations on WTO accession and currently is at the final stage of the accession process.

The Working Party on Kazakhstan’s Accession to the WTO currently consists of 43 members of the WTO, 30 of which initiated bilateral market access negotiations with Kazakhstan.  By now, Kazakhstan signed protocols on completion of bilateral negotiations with 26 countries: Kyrgyz   Republic — in 2003, Georgia — in 2004, Pakistan, Turkey, China, South Korea, Oman, Japan, Cuba, and Mexico — in 2005, Norway, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Bulgaria, Switzerland, and Egypt — in 2006, Israel, Brazil, and Malaysia — in 2007, Canada and Australia — in 2008, India — in 2009, Ecuador and El Salvador — in 2010, USA and Guatemala — in 2011.

Kazakhstan is close to the conclusion of the bilateral market access negotiations with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Argentine and Chinese Taipei. The next revision of the draft Report of the Working Party on Kazakhstan’s Accession to the WTO describing the country’s trade regime will be reviewed at the meeting of the Working Party on Kazakhstan’s Accession by the end of April this year. The majority members of the Working Party express their support for the accession of Kazakhstan to the WTO by the end of the year 2012.  This priority objective has already been highlighted in the 2011 Annual Report on WTO Accessions by the WTO Director General Pascal Lamy to the 8th Ministerial Conference last December.

Accession to the WTO is one of the major priorities of the Government’s policy aimed at full integration into the world economy through enhancing competitiveness and diversification of the national economy and making fair contribution to the world economic welfare.