Viktor Khristenko has resigned as head of Russia’s Trade and Industry Ministry following his recent appointment to head the newly established Eurasian Economic Commission, the Russian presidential web site said on Wednesday.
At a summit in late December, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan approved Khristenko's appointment to head the Eurasian Economic Commission, a supranational body to integrate the three former Soviet republics within a common economic space.
No one had been appointed to replace Khristenko at the Industry and Trade Ministry. In December, Kommersant daily said Deputy Trade and Industry Minister Denis Manturov might be named to succeed Khristenko.
In November, the Russian, Belarusian and Kazakh presidents signed a declaration on Eurasian economic integration, a roadmap of integration processes aimed at creating the Eurasian Economic Union, which will be based on the Customs Union and common economic space among the three countries.
Medvedev and his Belarusian and Kazakh counterparts Alexander Lukashenko and Nursultan Nazarbayev also approved at their summit on Monday decisions on enforcing agreements from next year on the free movement of goods, capital and workforce within the common economic space between the three former Soviet republics and regulating the work of the Eurasian Economic Commission.
