Is Uzbekistan Back on the Road to the WTO?

Almost fifteen years after last meeting to work on Uzbekistan’s accession to the World Trade Organization, Tashkent has resumed talks on the WTO question.

On July 7, Uzbekistan’s Working Party – a group of WTO members negotiating multilaterally with Uzbekistan regarding its application to join – met for its fourth formal meeting. The Working Party, currently chaired by South Korean Ambassador to the UN Ji-Ah Paik was established on December 21, 1994 and has made scant progress since.

The Working Party last met in October 2005, nearly 15 years ago.

WTO accession is a marathon, not a sprint, but Uzbekistan’s dottering is remarkable.

Kyrgyzstan holds the record for shortest accession process, at just under three years, and the Seychelles currently holds the record for longest accession process, at 19 years and 11 months (Kazakhstan is just behind, with its accession process lasting 19 years and 10 months). A 2015 WTO information brochure noted that the average accession process takes nine and a half years from announcement of an intent to join to actual y achieving membership.

At 26 years and running, Uzbekistan is a distant outlier.

In the 2015 information brochure, the WTO comments that “the length of time [for accession] varies depending on the commitment of the acceding government, the degree to which its trade rules are already consistent with WTO rules, and the complexity of the issues under negotiation.”

Arguably, when Uzbekistan set out to join the WTO in the 1990s, it was starting from a similar place with regard to its trade policies as other Central Asian and former Soviet states. It was always going to be a long haul to reorient the country’s rules and regulations to link into a Western set of trade norms. It’s notable that such states, with the exception of Kyrgyzstan, have all had longer-than-average accession processes. Russia and Kazakhstan each took more than 19 years; Tajikistan’s process took over 12 years. Turkmenistan, no surprise, has never applied to join the WTO. Reports earlier this year indicated that the country was pondering the possibility.

In Russia’s often half-hearted quest to join the WTO, its Working Party held 31 rounds of formal meetings. Kazakhstan, which began its efforts to join the WTO in 1996 and acceeded in 2015, held 20 formal meetings. Tajikistan held only nine and Kyrgyzstan sprinted to membership with just six formal meetings.

To date, Uzbekistan’s Working Party has met just four times.

Even if the road to accession is long, Tashkent seems intent on walking it – encouraged strongly by the United States, among others. But Uzbekistan is also balancing possible full membership in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) at the same time. While membership in the latter does not preclude membership in the former – indeed, four of the five EAEU member states are already WTO members – the order in which Uzbekistan accedes to either comes with contemporary political baggage.

Accession is not just a technical matter; it’s a political signal, too.

Under President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Uzbekistan has reengaged both with its neighbors and the international community. But in the tug-of-war between the EAEU and the WTO, each pulls at a different impulse: the former linked to regional integration and the latter to greater trade liberalization. Bringing Uzbekistan out of its late Karimv-era isolation, Mirziyoyev fronted economic reforms as a key driver of growth and change in the country. He has also played his cards cleverly, trying to attract anyone and everyone who can help bring Uzbekistan’s economy into the modern age while also centering the concept of regional integration. In terminology beloved in Central Asia: Uzbekistan is taking a multivector approach by working on its WTO accession while also working with the EU on an Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (EPCA) and, of course, teasing interest in full membership in the EAEU.

In describing the benefits of the WTO, the organization says, “Acceding economies undergo structural and trade-liberalizing reforms which trigger further economic development and help to secure integration into the global economy.” The promise of joining the WTO – which currently has 164 member states – is of a rules-based trading system, which hosts at its core the principles of “non-discrimination, market opening, transparency, increased competitiveness, and the promotion of international cooperation.” It’s a pillar of the so-called liberal international order with which Russia has, over the years, had increasing disputes.

For many, particularly in the West, the EAEU is viewed as a vanity and influence project for Russia. Umida Hashimova, writing about Uzbekistan’s EAEU vs. WTO choice in late 2019, noted that “the EAEU is a weak organization in many respects… the organization is a political vanity project more than a useful economic cooperative mechanism.” In his January 24 state of the union address, Mirziyoyev said Uzbekistan was “studying avenues to cooperate with the Eurasian Economic Union.” By mid-May, the Uzbek Senate had approved seeking observer status in the union.

With that in mind – taking an interim step toward EAEU membership rather than the full leap – Uzbekistan’s restarting of negotiations with the WTO is significant.

Ambassador Ji-Ah Paik, chair of Uzbekistan’s Working Party, said the July meeting “sends a clear message that Uzbekistan is back” and “clearly indicates that WTO accession is integral to Uzbekistan's economic reform and modernization agenda.”

Sardor Umurzakov, deputy prime minister and minister of investments and foreign trade of Uzbekistan, said that accession to the WTO is “an absolute priority” for Tashkent.