Special representative to president of Uzbekistan for World Trade Organization Azizbek Urunov spoke about the challenges the country faces in the process of joining the WTO. He spoke at the European economy days held in Tashkent on 6 November.
The accession process to this global trade organization “is a big challenge because sometimes long-standing WTO members, they lose the shoes in terms of how challenging it is that accession”.
“That's why in terms of negotiations, to be honest, it’s a bit easier to negotiate with the latest acceded countries. Because they haven’t forgotten how difficult the process is. Sometimes we feel that even in our bilateral negotiation, some developed countries, they are demanding the same requirements from the developing countries or a least developed countries (LDC). And I think from the perspective of the provisions of the WTO agreements and from the regard that developed countries are helping the developing countries and the LDC in terms of their economic push ups,” Azizbek Urunov stated.
The special representative said this approach was “a bit unfair, because you cannot be treated at the same level as the developed countries”.
“And sometimes it is very hard in bilateral negotiations because there are the provisions of the WTO agreements, let’s say GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade — ed.) provisions, article 18, which says developing countries must have still a bit of room for supporting their economic development, industrial development and so on. But some countries keep demanding from acceding countries the same level of requirements in terms of market access, in terms of liberalization, as if those developing countries in terms of economic status or economic level at the same stage with the developed countries,” he noted.
Azizbek Urunov continued that non-tariff measures were among the primary challenges facing the WTO today.
“When WTO was established, one of the key principles that was set up by its members was to regulate the trade by tariff measures rather than non-tariff measures. But if you look at for the past 30 years, how do things develop progress? So most of the countries indeed liberalized their tariff measures but non-tariff measures are burdening currently the trade among the countries. So this is one of the key challenges that’s happening within the WTO. Because some countries say, yes, we do have the free trade between or we have a free trade in terms of tariff measures, in terms of access to the market. But if you look at the non-tariff measures, so most of them are blocking measures that are keeping the countries from patent trade,” special representative explained.
He noted that non-tariff measures were becoming a major obstacle for many countries.
“Sometimes we see a lot of foreigners that come to Uzbekistan: they enjoy the fruits and vegetables of Uzbekistan. But when we talk to them in terms of exporting those fruits and vegetables, those non-tariff measures are being raised immediately saying that you need to comply with this requires that requires. That is still keeping us from improving the trade relations among the countries. That’s why within the WTO, when we look at those things, we need to think about how to align in order to follow the key principles that were set when the WTO was established in 1995,” he said.
Following the panel session, Azizbek Urunov answered journalists' questions on non-tariff restrictions.
“We're not a WTO member. My comments were about the changes over the WTO’s 30-year existence. One of the founding principles was to regulate trade through tariffs. Tariffs have indeed been liberalized significantly. However, many countries have introduced their own non-tariff requirements, which often hinder free trade. That’s what I was addressing. Uzbekistan is also actively reforming its non-tariff measures,” he clarified.
In his view, there is a call for WTO reforms. “Trends are changing globally. E-commerce is actively developing worldwide. From this perspective, reforms in the global trading system should accompany this new era,” he said.
Azizbek Urunov added that during WTO accession, each country would have the opportunity to protect its enterprises based on its economic interests, but this protection would be temporary.
“Usually, this protection is temporary — one, two, three, or four years. To this end, we’ve drafted three draft laws on trade measures, which are currently being submitted to the government. These are laws on anti-dumping, protective and compensatory measures. If subsidies are applied to imports into Uzbekistan, we can take trade measures against those subsidies,” he explained.
Azizbek Urunov reminded that Uzbekistan had recently successfully concluded bilateral negotiations with the United States.
“I hope it’s going to give a boost for speeding up these bilateral negotiations with the remaining countries. We don’t have many countries. Most of the countries with whom we were to negotiate, we completed negotiations with them. 21 countries are already behind. So we still have a few countries to complete and we are aiming to accede the WTO in 2026.,” he said.
Uzbekistan still has to complete negotiations with Russia, the European Union, China, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and other countries, the special representative added.
