OREANDA-NEWS. July 22, 2010. Kazakhstan plans to complete bilateral talks on accession into the WTO by the year end, Minister of Economic Development and Trade Zhanar Aitzhanova told journalists.

According to her, Kazakhstan is holding bilateral talks with the USA and Saudi Arabia. The latter talks are entering “the final stage”.

“As for the USA, there is a narrow list of unresolved issues left; they are related to agriculture, namely setting tariffs quotas on meat”, Ms. Aitzhanova said.

She promised that Kazakhstan plans to resolve the issues by the coming autumn.

July 14 in Brussels she met EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht to discuss Kazakhstan’s export duties on commodities and access to the financial services market.

This was the final stage of the 5-year bilateral talks on access to markets as part of Kazakhstan’s campaign to access the WTO.

The Ministry’s press service earlier announced that the Ministry plans to finalize the talks in September or October this year.