Adaptation with cooperation – Newspaper Kommersant No. 202 (7403) dated 10/31/2022

Astana hosted a meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) on Friday. The prime ministers of the participating countries spoke about the desire to expand trade and economic cooperation in order to smooth out the negative from the geopolitical situation and global crisis phenomena. Among the proposals is the transition to trade settlements in national currencies and the implementation of joint investment projects. So far, however, the CIS countries have not always been able to complete long-standing initiatives: the signing of a ten-year-old agreement on free trade in services and on investment is now scheduled for the middle of next year.

The eightieth meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of the CIS was held in Astana in person. The prime ministers of Azerbaijan, Belarus, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, as well as deputy heads of the governments of Armenia and Turkmenistan arrived in the capital of Kazakhstan. On the whole, the meeting followed the logic of the mid-October meeting of the presidents of the CIS countries and meetings of other associations in the post-Soviet space: they spoke about the need to strengthen cooperation against the backdrop of geopolitical problems and difficulties in the global economy.

Cooperation within the CIS looked especially in demand in the statements of the prime ministers of the sanctioned Russia and Belarus. The head of the Russian government of the Russian Federation Mikhail Mishustin, noting the “special value” of trade and industry cooperation “against the backdrop of negative global processes”, said that in the first seven months of this year, Russia’s trade with the CIS countries increased by 6% (in 2021 – by 30% ). Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko noted that globally things are moving towards “fragmentation of the world economy into geopolitical blocs with their own technological patterns and payment standards.” It should be noted that in accordance with this logic, Russia proposes to the CIS countries to introduce their own systems for the transmission of financial messages (against the background of the disconnection of a number of Russian banks from SWIFT), as well as to accelerate the transition to national currencies in mutual trade. However, the settlement of the issue of settlements, as you know, is now moving forward not easily even in a narrower association of countries – within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union.

There are also difficulties in terms of mutual trade. Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan Akylbek Zhaparov spoke at the meeting in favor of revising the “restrictive measures on food exports” of the Commonwealth countries, for lowering barriers at the borders, developing transport corridors and implementing joint investment projects. The latter, according to him, “will require the full disclosure of the potential of the agreement on a free trade zone in the CIS and the maximum simplification of conditions for the movement of goods and investment flows.”

So far, we note that work in this direction has been fairly delayed. An agreement on free trade in services and on investment is still not ready. This document has been in preparation for about ten years in the development of an agreement on a free trade zone in the CIS, signed back in 2011. Last year, plans were announced to sign it in May 2022, but even now the prime ministers are talking about the need to promptly complete the negotiation process. So far, as Russian Economics Minister Maxim Reshetnikov explained on Friday, the agreement has been approved in general: the document will regulate the access of companies providing services to the CIS markets, issues of establishing and registering organizations, and providing guarantees to investors. According to him, agreements have already been reached on most issues, now it remains to settle the issue of establishing companies at the ministerial level. Chairman of the CIS Executive Committee Sergey Lebedev said that it is planned to complete the work this year in order to submit the agreement for consideration by the Council of Heads of Government at the next meeting, which is scheduled for June 2023.

Otherwise, the agenda of the council meeting in Astana was rather routine: the prime ministers signed about 20 documents, in particular, on holding the CIS Games in Belarus in 2023, on responding to health emergencies, approved the concepts of scientific and technical cooperation and digital transformation of the chemical complex of CIS countries.

Evgenia Kryuchkova, Astana