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Customs Union begins talks with EFTA on special trade zone: Putin

“Liberalization of trade, the removal of barriers to economic cooperation will be among the focal points in the agenda of the APEC forum that will be held in Vladivostok in one....

MOSCOW, October 3 (Itar-Tass) — The Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan has gone into talks with the European Free Trade Association on setting up a zone of free trade, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in an article published in the Izvestia daily on Tuesday.

“Liberalization of trade, the removal of barriers to economic cooperation will be among the focal points in the agenda of the APEC forum that will be held in Vladivostok in one year,” the prime minister noted.

He said “Russia will advance a common coordinated position of all participants in the Customs Union and the Common Economic Space”. According to him, the global crisis that broke out in 2008 had a structural nature and its “strong recurrences” can still be witnessed.

The root of the problem is in accumulated global misbalances. The process of developing post-crisis models of global development proceeds with a lot of difficulties. “For example, the Doha Round has been practically stalled, there are also objective difficulties inside the World Trade Organisation, and the principle of freedom of trade and openness of markets is facing a serious crisis itself”.

The development of common approaches at the grassroots level can become a way out, Putin said. “First inside the existing regional agencies – the EU, NAFTA, APEC, ASEAN and others, and then – through a dialogue between them,” he added. “It is out of these integration ‘bricks’ that a more stable nature of the global economy may emerge,” Putin stressed.

“For example, two biggest associations of our continent – the European Union and the emerging Eurasian Union, which base their cooperation on principles of free trade and compatibility of regulation systems, objectively can spread these principles from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, including through relations with third countries and regional agencies,” the Russian prime minister continued.

Then, he believes, it will be logical to begin a constructive dialogue on principles of cooperation with countries of the Asia Pacific Region, North America and other regions.