Kazakhstan expects to enter the World Trade Organization (WTO) by December 2012, KazTAG reported Timur Sulejmenov, vice minister of economic development, as saying.
Negotiations on the post-Soviet republic’s WTO accession have been on-going for more than 14 years. According to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the country applied for membership in the WTO in April 1996 and circulated its Memorandum on the Foreign Trade Regime in 1996. Kazakhstan’s Working Party met for the first time in March 1997.