ASTANA (TCA) — On February 11 the Senate of Kazakhstan’s Parliament ratified the free trade agreement between the Eurasian Economic Union member states and Vietnam.
“The free trade agreement with Vietnam covers such areas of trade and economic cooperation as trade protection measures, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, intellectual property rights, competition, rules of origin, customs cooperation, sustainable development, and e-commerce,” Deputy Minister of National Economy of Kazakhstan Murat Kusainov said while introducing the document at the Senate.
At the same time, in order to protect the domestic market, the Agreement provides for the right of application of special protective, antidumping and countervailing measures in accordance with WTO rules.
The deputy minister stressed that the agreement “does not provide for the abolition of export duties.”
“Export duties for products which are not made in our country, like coffee, tea, and the like, will be at the level of the EEU [duties],” the deputy minister said in an interview with the Atameken National Chamber of Entrepreneurs of Kazakhstan (www.palata.kz).
“We mainly plan to export grain, flour, meat, ferrous metals. The market is open,” Kusainov said.
Kazakhstan can also export alcoholic beverages to Vietnam. “As I said, a preliminary agreement was signed. There could be alcoholic products on the Vietnamese market. There is a transition period of five to ten years, after which we can start exporting,” the deputy minister said.
