The Customs Union and Ukraine intend to lift technical barriers to the back and forth movement of goods during 2014, the Eurasian Economic Commission's (EEC) trade minister, Andrei Slepnyov, said after the third round of dialog on trade issues between the Union and Ukraine in Moscow on Wednesday.
“We agreed practical steps so that a ‘road map’ can be coordinated in January and during the coming year to the extent possible do all the basic work that will allow enterprises in our countries, by type of goods, to achieve a regime of free movement without technical barriers,” Slepnyov said.
The end goal of the agreements is achieving such a regime, he said, so that Ukrainian product and that of Customs Union countries will reach each others’ markets without additional checks, certification, or documents.
EEC data indicate that there was a 4.7% drop in free goods turnover between the Union and country last year from the year before. It was down 16% year-on-year in January-September this year.
