Facilitating Uzbekistan's Accession to the WTO

WHAT IS THE WTO ACCESSION PROCESS?

Any state or customs territory having full autonomy in the conduct of its trade policies may become a member ("accede to") of the WTO, but all WTO members must agree on the terms. This is done through the establishment of a working party of WTO members and through a process of negotiations.

Following the establishment of a working party for the accession process, bilateral, plurilateral and multilateral negotiations take place in parallel. The successful conclusion of these negotiations leads to the drafting of an accession package ("terms of accession/entry"), which needs to be adopted by the accession working party and approved by the WTO's General Council or Ministerial Conference. Subsequently, the acceding government has to accept the "terms of entry" - either through signature or ratification - and becomes a full-fledged WTO member 30 days after it notifies the acceptance of its Protocol of Accession to the WTO Director-General.  

Source: WTO

All information on the WTO accession process can be found here

Current status of ongoing accession negotiations can be found here

Within ITC's exclusive mandate to foster the private sectors' participation, in particular SMEs, for trade-led economic growth, ITC aims at supporting developing countries' private sector participation in the WTO accession process. The assistance provided is customized according to each country's stage of accession and specific economic situation as well as development strategies.

ITC's provides support to WTO acceding developing countries with a twofold objective:

With this objective as its backdrop, ITC has been successfully assisting least developed and developing countries in their WTO accession process since 2009 by providing them with a wide range of technical assistance services and capacity building activities. These include supporting the drafting of their WTO accession documents (Memorandum of Foreign Trade Regime and Legal Action Plan), achieving balanced accession strategies (drafting of the goods and services initial offers, supporting the conclusion of national trade policy strategies), and implementing a nation-wide public-private dialogue methodology to build consensus around the accession and negotiations positions. Samoa, Yemen, Lao PDR, Comoros, Liberia, Sudan, Tajikistan and Ethiopia are all among the beneficiaries of ITC's assistance on the path to their WTO membership.

To reach this ambitious goal, ITC has developed a five-fold strategy that is tailored to the needs and situation of each country. This strategy encompasses the following:

• Awareness raising on the WTO system and covered agreements to inform public sector officers and bridge the knowledge asymmetry between the government and the private sector;
• Support in drafting the Memorandum of Foreign Trade Regime and Legislative Action Plan and/or assistance to reply to WTO Members' questions following the submission of these documents;
• Support in drafting comprehensive services and goods initial offers, which will be aligned with the country's development strategy and the private sector's needs;
• Creation of a pool of knowledge for sustainable capacity building on WTO related issues;
• Providing advisory services to ensure a fruitful participation in WTO negotiations

Beyond the accession process, ITC also supports countries that have recently acceded to the organization in the implementation of their WTO commitments.

The process of Uzbekistan's WTO accession was initiated in 1994, but was frozen in 2005, due to the self-sufficiency policy that was instituted during that time.

Fast forward to 2016, where shortly after his election, President Mirziyoyev initiated a broad package of socio-economic reforms and transformation aimed at trade liberalization and modernization of domestic trade regime. Following these reforms, the process of accession to the WTO was renewed through a formal application to the WTO Secretariat signed by the Minister of Foreign Trade in March 2018. In July 2019, Uzbekistan circulated its updated Memorandum of Foreign Trade Regime (MFTR) to the WTO members, as well as later on a number of other required WTO accession documents, including initial market access offers on goods and services. The progress made by Uzbekistan resulted in the support by WTO members in carrying out the 4th Working Party on the accession of Uzbekistan to the WTO, which took place on July 7^th, 2020 after almost fifteen years of standstill in the negotiations. This milestone event has marked Uzbekistan's return to the negotiating table and its government's dedication and efforts made towards joining the WTO membership. Next developments in the accession process will depend on the progress achieved in upcoming bilateral and multilateral negotiations as well as the alignment of Uzbekistan's trade regulatory regime with the WTO rules and regulations.

The current status (as of October 2020) of the WTO accession process of Uzbekistan is represented in this diagramme:

Source: WTO

NB: the blue highlights are the phases that have been completed already,

 while the grey highlights indicate the phases that still need to be completed

All information regarding the status of the process of accession of Uzbekistan to the WTO- including all official documents- can be found here.

Why the project?

The European Union (EU) ‘Facilitating the process of Uzbekistan’s accession to the WTO’ project is a five-year initiative implemented by the International Trade Centre (ITC). The project, which started in February 2020, aims to support Uzbekistan's development plans to modernize its economy by leveraging its WTO accession process.

If the Uzbekistan's WTO accession process concludes within the implementation phase of the project, the focus of ITC's assistance will shift to support Uzbekistan's compliance with WTO requirements and implementation of the commitments made during the accession process.

STAY CONNECTED: #WTOAccessionUZB

More information on EU's work in Uzbekistan can be found here

Who are the beneficiaries?

• The primary beneficiary of the programme will be the ministry responsible for the WTO accession negotiations: the Ministry of Investment and Foreign Trade (MIFT). Other direct beneficiaries will include the various government departments/agencies involved in both the pre- and post- WTO accession process.

• The project will also work closely with the Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, as well as sectoral business organizations and associations, export-import enterprises, universities, economic research centers and civil society organizations, including women, youth and consumer associations.

• The ultimate stakeholders will be the Uzbek businesses, especially SMEs as well as the consumers, in particular women, youth and people living in vulnerable and marginalized situation.

What are the foreseen results?