Official website of the President of Russia

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President Vladimir Putin: А major event was just held in Yalta – the CIS summit. At the summit, documents were signed on the creation of a Common economic space between the four largest nations – Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. I want to stress once more that this is not a closed group within the framework of the CIS. On the contrary, it is an attempt to create a new level of cooperation. If we succeed in achieving everything that we agreed on, and realize in practice everything that we signed on paper, then it is to be expected that our other colleagues, our other partners in the CIS will also show great interest in this work, and I hope that we will have the chance to develop these tendencies of integration in CIS countries at a completely new level in future.

I would like to remind you that a Common economic space involves a fairly complex but effectively functioning mechanism for passing decisions and agreeing on these decisions in the most sensitive and necessary spheres, at least at the first stage of economic integration. This means reaching agreement on our economic policies, rate policies, and regulation in the sphere of energy, transport and so on.

We unanimously believe that this can only be done effectively by founding a regulatory body, and now we will ensure that this work continues, so that everything that we have established is realised in practice.

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