Azerbaijan applied for WTO accession in June 1997 and submitted its Memorandum on the Foreign Trade Regime in 1999.
The first meeting of the Azerbaijan’s Working Party took place in June 2002. Azerbaijan’s most recent Working Part meeting – its tenth – was held in December 2012, to review the factual summary and new implementing legislation. Azerbaijan recently circulated revised offers for goods and services market access and accelerated its negotiations with WTO Members to establish its WTO Schedules of tariff and services commitments and its next Working Party meeting is anticipated during the first half of 2013.
The United States has actively participated in Azerbaijan’s Working Party meetings, and has engaged in bilateral consultations with the Government of Azerbaijan on the margins of WTO and other meetings in Geneva and Washington. The most recent bilateral consultations with on market access for goods and services occurred in November and December 2012.
The United States continues to provide technical assistance (through USAID and funding from the Government of Azerbaijan) in the form of a resident advisor and his team for drafting documentation, training, legal drafting, and institution building in the areas of customs, licensing, intellectual property, standards and sanitary measures, to facilitate the accession process.
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