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Russian minister of industry and trade to chair board of Eurasian Economic Commission

 

The Russian minister of industry and trade, Viktor Khristenko, will chair the board of the future Eurasian Economic Commission in the first four years, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev said at a news conference in Moscow on Friday.

“I think that it can be safely said that we unanimously support the appointment of Khristenko to this position,” said Mr. Nazarbayev.

“It can also be safely said that he, in fact, has already been appointed to it,” added Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

Earlier in the day, the leaders of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia inked an agreement on the formation of a Eurasian Economic Commission to oversee integration between the three members of the Customs Unions, which are preparing to launch the Common Economic Zone in 2012. They also signed a declaration of intent to create a Eurasian Economic Union by 2015.

The Eurasian Economic Commission will replace the Customs Commission, the supranational governing body within the Customs Union, which will cease to exist on July 1, 2012.

It will have a council consisting of three representatives of the countries and a board consisting of three deputy prime ministers.

Its staff is projected to increase from 150 to 1,200 people as departments and advisory bodies will be set up within the Eurasian Economic Commission.

Mr. Nazarbayev said that the executive bodies of the future Eurasian Economic Union would be based in Moscow in the first four years following its launch.

“It is perhaps right for the executive bodies to be based in Moscow as far as the intellectual and economic potential needed to address many difficult issues is concerned," he noted. //BelaPAN