Entrepreneurs from the countries joining the Customs Union require support as not all the producers are ready for the new alliance’s terms yet. Almaty has hosted an international research conference entitled “The Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia: reality and prospects”. According to the meeting participants, issues relating to customs formalities have almost been fully solved. The signing of prime documents with regard to the function of the Eurasian economic area will be held by the end of this week, in particular involving the adoption of resolutions on the common tariff and code.

Gulnur Rakhmatulina, Chief research officer, Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies:
- It is necessary to raise the competitiveness of our commodity producers so as to be competitive with Russian and Belarussian commodity producers. So, we will certainly have to carry out a lot of work in this respect. At the same time, the customs union has a lot of advantages and the main one lies in the fact that customs formalities will be eliminated at the frontier and corresponding conditions for the free movement of goods will be created. So, these terms will contribute to attracting investment and the development of mutual trade.

The local business community is worrieed about goods from Russian and Belarussian producers flooding the Kazakh market. It is necessary to speed up the process of development of the domestic processing sector and introduce know-how technology to these enterprises in order to avoid this situation. Raising the level of quality will enable goods with the “made in Kazakhstan” trademark to be as competitive as imported ones.