EEC: Customs Union farm produce is competitive with EU products
On 7 March Minister for Industry and Agriculture of the Eurasian Economic Commission Sergei Sidorsky, Agriculture and Food Minister of Belarus Leonid Zayats and Ministers of Agricuture of Kazakhstan and Russia Asylzhan Mamytbekov and Nikolai Fyodorov held a video conference to discuss agro-industrial issues related to the development of the Eurasian Economic Union Treaty.
"The ministers attached special attention to the consideration of the norms of the agreement on the unified rules of state support for agriculture. The agreement will make the basis for the Agro-Industrial Production section of the Eurasian Economic Union Treaty," the EEC said.
The video conference confirmed the need to adopt the common methodology to calculate state support for agriculture.
"The ministers discussed development trends of mutual and foreign trade in agricultural goods of the Customs Union member states and noted that despite boosting mutual supplies, the countries could not overcome the growing tendency of the imports from third countries," the EEC said. "The ministers paid attention to the data on the level of state support for agriculture, including product-specific which in all member states of the integration community does not exceed 5% in resent to the cost of the product, and this proves its insignificant influence on the market competition. It is proven by the information that prices at which farm produce from the Customs Union comes to the market are competitive enough and keep to the level of prices for the products coming from third countries, including from the European Union," the EEC added, BelTA reports.
According to the EEC, the parties hope to find common ground on the wording of the Agro-Industrial Production section of the draft Eurasian Economic Union Treaty after the consultations with national governments, other government and business stakeholders.
