Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:
Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon,
Last week we held a meeting of the Supreme Body of the Customs Union between the prime ministers of our countries here in St Petersburg. We discussed in detail all issues related to the further integration of our three countries - Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
The sides expressed their common desire to see the Customs Code enter into force on July 1 of this year, as planned.
This is necessary, as it will allow our companies, enterprises and citizens to enjoy the benefits of a unified customs space free of administrative barriers as soon as possible.
We have instructed our ministries and departments to work through the remaining unresolved issues in the tripartite format.
Then we held a video conference, which included the members of the Customs Union Commission. During the conference, we agreed in principle to a range of solutions, after which our experts worked out the specifics.
I would like to note that we have reached a common position on the agreement on special economic zones and approved the procedure for importing goods for personal use into the Customs Union. We are ready to make exemptions on the import of cars by the citizens of our partner countries, and there should be a transitional period with a clear end point.
We intend to support this decision considering its social significance for our partners.
Furthermore, we have reached an understanding on customs administration for goods for which there still are not unified anti-dumping, protective and other special measures, or unified customs and tariffs procedures. This applies to a rather narrow range of goods.
In addition, members of the Customs Union Commission should sign in due course a number of agreements regarding the Customs Code's entry into force.
Regrettably, for the time being Belarus has not confirmed that it is ready to sign the required documents. However, I talked today with the prime minister of Belarus, and I informed our colleagues from Kazakhstan of this. The prime minister relayed President Alexander Lukashenko's willingness to continue our joint work in the tripartite format.
There remains essentially just one area of disagreement with our Belarusian colleagues, which is not related to the Customs Union. I'm referring to export duties on oil and oil products. As you'll recall, our Belarusian colleagues raised this issue during the meeting of the Supreme Body of the Customs Union on May 21.
I'd like to reiterate the position of the Russian Federation, which is that such duties will not apply to trade between our countries as soon as the agreement on the single economic space is ratified. This is why it is in our common interests to speed up the creation of this space, which will bring with it greater integration and the free movement of goods, services and labour. This will give us more opportunities to stimulate economic growth, promote industrial cooperation, create new jobs and implement major projects.
Again, we have covered a lot of ground during the past week. Important compromises have been put forth and Russia is ready to support them. For our part, we are going to focus our efforts on ensuring that the necessary documents enter in force on July 1 of this year.
During today's meeting, we need to dot the i's and cross the t's, to reach an agreement with our colleagues from Kazakhstan, with Prime Minister Karim Masimov, as we agreed to do. We have just had an opportunity to talk to him. Now we must decide how we are going to proceed.
Before we begin our discussion of these issues, I'd like to hear from our Kazakh colleagues. Please, Mr Masimov, go ahead.
Karim Masimov: Thank you, Mr Prime Minister. We met exactly a week ago here in St Petersburg to discuss the future of the Customs Union. We expected to take our final decisions last week, but for various reasons, we were unable to do so, and so we issued directives to the Customs Union Commission and our experts to continue their work. The Customs Union Commission, our deputy prime ministers and experts have done a good job and resolved almost all the areas of disagreement.
For example, the issue of car imports is critical for Kazakhstan. And I'm grateful to the Russian government and to you personally for the understanding you've shown. These agreements institute a transitional period, which will allow us to find a solution to this issue. It's very important for Kazakhstan.
Unfortunately, the representatives from Belarus are not present here today. As you just mentioned, you held talks with Minsk. We're looking forward to Belarus joining this agreement when necessary and on the terms we agreed to today.
Another point: These agreements will be signed by Russia and Kazakhstan, and as we agreed, all decisions will be made by consensus, not how we agreed earlier. I believe this is another very important decision, as it will benefit both our economies.
President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan fully supports our efforts to have the Customs Union up and running by July 1, as the presidents of our countries have instructed. It's my pleasure to reiterate his support. Thank you.
Vladimir Putin: I'll only add that I consulted with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev this morning. We discussed this issue in detail. The first deputy prime minister also reported to the president.
We have a unified position, which we'll put forward in our meeting with you, and we'll implement the agreements to be signed today.
Thank you.
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Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov signed the Agreement between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Kazakhstan on the Applicability of Treaties to the Formation of the Customs Union.