ST PETERSBURG, May 16 (Itar-Tass) —— The trade turnover of the states of the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC) is to exceed one trillion dollars by the end of 2012, Viktor Khristenko, the chairman of the Collegium of the Eurasian Economic Commission, told the meeting of the Bureau of the EurAsEC Inter-parliamentary Assembly on Wednesday.
“We are now at the point of the community’s development when the pace and quality of integration are changing; the trade turnover among the EurAsEC member countries will reach one trillion dollars by the end of 2012,” Khristenko said. The chairman of the Collegium said “the unification of national legislations”, the way this takes place in the European Union, and is one of the main tasks on the way to the deepening of integration. This is meant for “the freer transfer of goods and services”. “We wish to copy the best features of the European integration project as the most successful interstate formation, while using our own specific features and historic prerequisites,” Khristenko said.
Yerlan Nigmatulin, the head of Kazakhstan’s parliamentary delegation, agreed with this opinion. “Kazakhstan is strongly in favor of integration on the post-Soviet space. We must harmonize legislations of the countries. The Inter-parliamentary structure of the EurAsEC could play an important role in that,” he said.
The Eurasian Economic Community is an international economic organization formed to create a common market – free transfer of manpower, goods, services and funds. The Eurasian Commission is a permanent supranational regulating body of the Customs Union and of the common economic space, whose main task is to provide conditions for the functioning and development of integration. Viktor Khristenko has been the head of the Commission from February 2012.