Ukraine and the Eurasian Economic Commission are going to gradually remove trade barriers.

Minister of Economic Development and Trade Petro Poroshenko said this at a press conference in Moscow on Wednesday, following the first meeting of the dialogue group on trade issues between the Eurasian Economic Commission and the Government of Ukraine.

"We agreed that in 3-4 months we will make an inventory of the existing protective measures for their significant reduction and elimination in the medium term," Poroshenko said.

According to him, this approach will boost trade exchange. The minister said that Ukraine abolished the protective measures on matches, and today an order was signed on admission of Ukrainian stainless tubes to the market of the Customs Union. A format for the revision of protective measures on caramels has also been defined.

In turn, Trade Minister of the Eurasian Economic Commission Andrei Slepnev reported that on December 6-7, the first round of consultations on the definition of a steel pipe trade format for next year will be held. "This is a very sensitive position for Ukraine in our mutual trade, amounting to many millions of dollars," he said. "We have discussed the situation with the existing barriers to mutual trade. Unfortunately, we have noted that there are a lot of them on both sides - they have been accumulating for a long time. This is a challenge for our dialogue," said the EEC Trade Minister.

According to Slepnev, during the negotiations the parties stated that, against the backdrop of last year's growth, this year mutual trade is not growing. "There are quite objective reasons for this (including in power industry), and we believe that there is much room for joint efforts to improve business climate and reduce the barriers," he said.

Ukrinform