General council of the WTO can consider application of Ukraine for accession to this organization in January. The deputy head of the President’s Secretariat Olexander Shlapak informed.
He noted that now the compromise with the EU on export duty is being sought. Now the EU side is considering next in turn variant, submitted by Ukraine.
Kyiv expects to get answer by the end of the week. At the same time he noted that first comments on Ukraine’s proposition were positive.
On December 14 the last bilateral protocol between Ukraine and Guatemala concerning the WTO was signed.
Because of disagreement on export duty issue, the schedule for Ukraine’s accession to the WTO is broken. So Ukraine will not manage to join the WTO this year as it was planned.
At the same time the European Commission is sure that issue on export duty with Ukraine will be agreed successfully soon and Ukraine will join the WTO in the near future that will contribute to negotiations on creation of free zone trade between Ukraine and the European Union.
