DUSHANBE, August 13, 2012, Asia-Plus  -- Some countries are making political demands in exchange for Tajikistan’s admission to the World Trade Organization (WTO), an official source at the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade (MoEDT) said in an interview with Asia-Plus.

“The accession to the World Trade Organization is a long process and we are gradually nearing the goal,” said the source.  “However, there are countries that are making political demands in exchange for supporting our admission to the WTO, while it is purely economic organization.”

We will recall that the Working Party on the accession of Tajikistan to the World Trade Organization was established by the General Council on July 18, 2001.  Multilateral work is proceeding on the basis of revised Elements of a draft Working Party Report.  Bilateral market access negotiations are underway on the basis of revised offers in goods and services.

“To-date, the government delegation has held only eight rounds of negotiations.  Meanwhile, Russia, which has diplomatic missions practically in all countries of the world, has held 74 such negotiations and it will officially join the WTO on August 23,” the source noted.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which commenced in 1948. The organization deals with regulation of trade between participating countries; it provides a framework for negotiating and formalizing trade agreements, and a dispute resolution process aimed at enforcing participants'' adherence to WTO agreements which are signed by representatives of member governments and ratified by their parliaments.