Why Kazakhstan joined the Customs Union with Russia and Belarus?
On November 27, 2009 leaders of Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus gathered in Minsk to sign final agreements on the trilateral Customs Union. Recently, there have been a lot of questions as to why Kazakhstan joined the Union and some even questioned the organization’s economic credibility stating political reasons as the rationale behind the Union’s establishment. However, economic advantages of the Customs Union for Kazakhstan are obvious: increase in trade volumes, improvement of investment climate within the union, free movement of labor, capital and goods in the common customs space as well as better access to outside markets for domestic producers. Kazakhstan is the largest land-locked country in the world and much of its foreign trade depends on the routes that go through the territories of neighboring states and membership in the Customs Union will provide Kazakhstan’s businesses with domestic (non-discriminatory) transit tariffs. One of the main priorities of Kazakhstan’s Governme
