A regular meeting of the governmental commission to study issues related to Turkmenistan's accession to the WTO was held on Friday via videoconference. The same day, a consultative meeting was held on the WTO accession process and on the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).
Deputy Foreign Minister of Turkmenistan Vepa Hajiyev, heads and representatives of a number of relevant ministries and departments took part in the meeting on the Turkmen side.The meeting was also attended by representatives of the WTO Secretariat, the UNECE, the UN Resident Coordinator in Turkmenistan, the Permanent Representative of Turkmenistan to the WTO, as well as independent experts, the Turkmen Foreign Ministry said in its press release.
During the meeting, the Turkmen side stressed that as part of the implementation of the Foreign Trade Strategy of Turkmenistan in two stages, it is planned to implement a large number of tasks to complete the preparatory measures for Turkmenistan's entry into the WTO in accordance to the Roadmap for the implementation of this document at the first stage.
The second stage of the Strategy envisages Turkmenistan's accession to the WTO as a full-fledged member and further development of the foreign trade system, logistics infrastructure and expansion of Turkmenistan's foreign trade in the new realities.
The meeting participants also emphasized the timeliness of joint steps to implement the Action Plan for the development of a Memorandum on the foreign trade regime of Turkmenistan, which was prepared under the technical assistance and support of ADB.
At the end, the participants reviewed a number of priority issues related to continued work on enhancing Turkmenistan's interaction with WTO.
Turkmenistan obtained WTO observer status in July 2020. In February this year, during a meeting of the WTO General Council, a decision was made to grant Turkmenistan the status of an acceding country (active observer) to the WTO.