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Russia’s deputy PM says US leaving TPP does not affect Eurasian Customs Union

MOSCOW, January 25. /TASS/. The United States leaving the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will not affect the work of the Eurasian Customs Union (EACU), Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said on Wednesday.

"I don’t think so. These things are not related, we are building our Eurasian Partnership," he said, commenting on a possible impact of the US withdrawing from the TPP on relations between Russia, China and the countries of the Customs Union.

Deputy Economic Development Minister Stanislav Voskresensky told TASS earlier that the decision of the United States to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will not influence Russia’s agenda in the Asian region.

"Russia did not participate in the talks on TPP formation, this being a concern of the sides involved. Russia has its own agenda in the region. We’ve launched a free trade zone with Vietnam, created favorable tax conditions for placements in Singapore, Hong Kong, and China, we’re expanding projects through the integration of the Eurasian Economic Union with the Silk Road Economic Belt, and are about to break new ground in cooperation with Japan," he said.

On January 23, the US President Donald Trump signed an executive order formally withdrawing the United States from TPP.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a trade agreement, which implies a total abolition of duties on goods and services within the Asian-Pacific region. The agreement on the creation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership has been inked by trade ministers of Australia, Brunei, Vietnam, Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, the US, Singapore, Chile and Japan. The talks on creation of the union started in 2008. In October 2015, an agreement in principle was made to form the trade bloc.