On the meeting of the First Deputy Prime-Minister of Belarus Alexander Turchin with the WTO Director General Roberto Azevêdo and the Chairman of the Working Party Kemal Madenoğlu
10.07.2019On 10 July 2019, First Deputy Prime-Minister of Belarus Alexander Turchin met with the WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo. During the meeting the parties discussed further steps in the process of Belarus’s accession to the WTO.
Alexander Turchin thanked the WTO Secretariat for its assistance in advancing the negotiations in Belarus, including in terms of preparing materials for the Working Group meetings, as well as the updated “road map” of the negotiation process. The First Deputy Prime-Minister of Belarus stressed the Government’s readiness to move forward in line with the proposed plan in order to complete negotiations of Belarus’s accession to the WTO before the 12th Ministerial Conference of the Organization in June 2020. Alexander Turchin emphasized that Belarus is the largest economy among all the active countries joining the WTO, and therefore the Belarusian side considers Belarus’ accession as beneficial to all WTO members and the Organization itself.
Roberto Azevêdo highly appreciated the efforts of the Government of Belarus to promote the negotiation process, noting that Belarus is in a strategic focus with a view to early get-up the WTO membership. The Director General assured that he personally and the WTO Secretariat stay ready to continue to provide Belarus with the necessary assistance in this direction.
On the same day, Alexander Turchin met with the Chairman of Belarus Working Party — Permanent Representative of Turkey to the WTO, Kemal Madenoglu. The head of the Belarusian delegation thanked for the quality work in advancing the negotiation process, and also informed about concrete steps taken by the Belarusian Government in this direction. During the meeting, the parties discussed the agenda of the 12th Meeting of the WTO Working Party on the accession of Belarus, which will take place on 11 July 2019 in Geneva.
The day before, on July 9, 2019, Mr. Alexander Turchin met with the WTO Deputy Director-General Mr. Alan Wolff. During the meeting the parties discussed the results of the implementation of the agreements reached during the visit of Mr. Alan Wolff to Minsk in November 2018. The WTO Deputy Director-General informed about current trends in the WTO work and expressed readiness to continue to provide the necessary assistance to Belarus in the early completion of the negotiation process on accession to the WTO.
