The lower house of the Kazakh parliament approved on Wednesday an agreement between Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia on a common oil and oil products market.
"The goal of the agreement is to establish major principles and events aimed at forming common oil and oil products markets among the participants in the common economic space, as well as developing competition on these markets," Sauat Mynbayev, the Kazakh minister for oil and gas, told parliamentarians on Wednesday.
The agreement, signed in Moscow in December 2010, stipulates unlimited oil and oil products supplies to member countries and the absence of export duties, he added. The document has yet to be ratified by the Kazakh parliament's upper house and signed by the president to come into force.
The lower house has also approved an agreement that would assure the establishment of market gas prices in the three countries.
The Customs Union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan materialized in early July 2010, when the countries ratified the Customs Code. Customs borders are to be scrapped on July 1, 2011.
The creation of a common economic space with the free movement of goods, services and labor is billed as the next stage of their integration.
ASTANA, March 30 (RIA Novosti)
