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UNECE signs Memorandum of Understanding with the Eurasian Economic Commission

UNECE signs Memorandum of Understanding with the Eurasian Economic Commission

Viktor Khristenko, Chairman of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) and Sven Alkalaj, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two organizations in Geneva today.


The Memorandum aims at strengthening cooperation between the Parties on areas such as customs administration, technical regulations, trade, macroeconomic policy, transport and logistics.


In the area of Transport, the two organizations plan to undertake joint studies, workshops and conferences in the framework of the Euro-Asian Transport Linkages (EATL) and promoting border crossing facilitation and implementation monitoring of the Harmonization convention. Another key area for cooperation would be to raise awareness on road safety management in the framework of the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety.


In the area of trade, there is already a long standing cooperation supported by the ECE’s Regional Adviser on Trade Facilitation, focusing on building Single Windows which will be further strengthened under the Memorandum, e.g. through the Trade Facilitation Implementation Guideline.


Viktor Khristenko said:“Cooperation with UNECE is very important for EEC since UNECE produces and collects best national and international practices in a number of areas. Its knowledge and experience are highly estimated, as we intend to base our legislation on the best international practices. This is the reason why we need this dialogue with UNECE”.

He also mentioned that the Eurasian Economic Commission has supranational competencies in many areas such as tariff and non-tariff regulation, technical regulation, etc. The presidents of the three member States  have set  very ambitious goals to EEC. “By 2015 we want the Eurasian Union to start functioning” - he said.


Sven Alkalaj reconfirmed UNECE’s strong wish in working together with the Eurasian Economic Commission. Earlier bilateral cooperation between UNECE’s divisions and EEC has already proved to be beneficial for the two organizations and the MoU is an excellent basis for further developing the cooperation.


Mr Alkalaj said that the details of concrete joint activities will be negotiated between the Eurasian Economic Commission and UNECE’s substantive divisions and confirmed in an exchange of letters.



Note to editors


The Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) – a supranational governing body of the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia (CU) and the Single Economic Space (SES) of the Eurasian Economic Community. The main task of the EEC is to ensure conditions for the CU and SES operation and development as well as to elaborate economic integration initiatives within the framework of the CU and SES. The EEC is based on the Agreement on «the Eurasian Economic Commission» and «Eurasian Economic Commission Regulation» of 18 November 2011.


The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) is one of the five regional commissions of the United Nations. It brings together 56 countries in Europe, North-America, and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and North America.  Its main aim is to promote pan-European economic integration and cooperation in environment, forests, housing and land management, statistics, energy, trade and transport.

United Nations Economic Commission for Europe

Information Unit

Tel.: +41 (0) 22 917 12 34

Email: [email protected]

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