CIS countries economies may remain on sidelines of new technological order

On March 2, Moscow will host the 77th meeting of the CIS Economic Council at the level of vice-premiers and ministers responsible for economic issues. "We have decided to minimize number of issues that will be discussed by the highest bodies, we will focus only on main things. In this regard, the agenda includes only 9 issues," Director of the Economic Cooperation Department of the CIS Executive Committee Andrei Kushnirenko said, highlighting three blocks of issues.

The first one is negotiations on signing an agreement on free trade of services.

The second block of issues is associated with development of innovative cooperation in many aspects. One of its elements is an agreement on formation and development of intellectual property market in the CIS. The second element is a research program on Kazakhstan's Tokamak for the next three years - it's a facility for high-temperature plasma, a prototype of thermonuclear reactor, reactor of the future. Scientists of the CIS countries have prepared a joint program, and since the Tokamak is already launched, research works will begin in the coming weeks. The third element - issue of joint efforts to develop advanced innovative technologies in the field of energy.

The third block includes issues associated with implementation of protocol on mutual opening of the public procurement market within the CIS countries, signed two years ago.

Director-General of the Business Center for Economic Development of the CIS, Vladimir Savchenko, stressed that this year the CIS is chaired by Tajikistan: "There was a civil war in this country, only 10% of its territory is suitable for agriculture. That's why we, as people of business, pay a lot of attention to priorities of the concept of Tajikistan's chairmanship. We planned to hold the CIS conference in June, where we will examine the market of medicines and medical products, as well as issue of tourism. Tajikistan also pays close attention to issue of energy and water resources. Tadjikistan is one of the initiators of the Decade of Water Resources, in which the UN is interested. Naturally, Tajikistan and countries such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan face issue of creation of a power lines together with Russia, because there are countries that have surplus of energy resources, and now there are countries that don't have enough resources. They want to create a unified power line and make it so it would reach Afghanistan and other countries."

Professor of the Azerbaijani State Economic University, Elshad Mamedov, highlighted similarity in problems and challenges that economies of the CIS countries face: "We're seeing the formation of a qualitatively new technological order in the world economy, and economies of our countries may remain on the sidelines of this new technological order. In order to deepen economic cooperation between our countries, we can't prolong this process too much. It's necessary to formulate economic development strategy that would allow our countries to move at a faster pace and develop."

Mamedov noted that Azerbaijani government is developing measures to diversify national economy and develop new industries, primarily related to non-oil sector."In this regard, the CIS remains a priority direction for Azerbaijan. Share of the CIS countries, primarily Russia, in the non-oil sector of Azerbaijan reaches about 70%. In order to develop joint strategy and develop of our economies, it's necessary to use scientific potential. It's necessary to develop goods and services trade, as well as concentrate on movement of labor resources. Due to this, there's an issue of unification of educational standards. Unfortunately, our educational institutions have completely different standards," he said.

He noted that there's a serious basis for mutually beneficial cooperation in educational process and integration of scientific organizations: "Azerbaijan has great environment for studying Russian language as a mean of communication between our countries.Russian sector is developing rapidly. The Azerbaijani State Economic University has great Russian economics school, which is one of the priorities that helps to deepen mutually beneficial cooperation between scientific and educational institutions of the CIS countries."