OREANDA-NEWS. November 19, 2009. Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan will accede to the World Trade Organization (WTO) as the Customs Union and a common customs territory, the deputy director of the foreign economic activities department and head of the foreign trade office of the Foreign Ministry, Anton Kudasov, told a news briefing.

Kudasov believes the common market will be more interesting to WTO member-states than the three separate markets of the candidates.

Commenting on the timeline, Kudasov said: “If pragmatism prevails, all procedures will be completed within12-24 months, but if they choose other approaches, it may take much longer.”

“They understand that the three states have made their choices and outlined their priorities. The WTO is aware that little time may be required for a breakthrough. Whether we will make this breakthrough in an organization where they influence us or not – the choice is clear,” Kudasov said.

He said Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan had not called off their individual applications.

“The WTO identifies the accession mechanism independently. They made it clear that a collective application could be considered ineligible after the withdrawal of individual applications, so we decided to leave the things as they are for the WTO to decide. We will be entering WTO as a single customs territory starting July 1, 2010,” Kudasov said.