DUSHANBE, August 16, Asia-Plus -- Leaders of member nations of the Eurasian Economic Community (EAEC) launched a two-day informal summit in southern Russian Wednesday, focusing on a common energy market and customs union as part of the Community.  

Russia’s news agency Itar-Tass reports leaders of the EAEC member countries have signed a document obligating the Community’s Secretariat as well as Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan to take necessary measures to form a legal foundation for formation of the customs union.   

Russian President Vladimir Putin opening the meeting offered the EAEC leaders to discuss integration processes, includes those related to the Common Economic Space /CES/, and the plans to join the World Trade Organization.  He also pointed to the importance of exchange of information about the plans of the country’s joining the World Trade Organization (WTO).  He also called for paying attention to intensifying EAEC''s cooperation with the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).  

The EAEC leaders have signed a resolution on Uzbekistan’s full-fledged membership of the CSTO, Russian President Vladimir Putin told journalists following the talks. 

In the meantime, Uzbekistan’s parliament has approved the laws on the country’s joining the EAEC.  Four bills were approved at a plenary meeting.  Three of them concern Uzbekistan''s joining the EAEC and one is about the accession to Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

The parliament also ratified the law on Uzbekistan’s joining the convention on privileges and immunities of the Eurasian Economic Community, signed in Minsk on May 31, 2001, on Uzbekistan''s joining the treaty of the Customs Union and the Common Economic Space, signed in Moscow on February 26, 1999, on Uzbekistan’s joining the treaty of cooperation and protection of external borders of the EAEC member-states of February 21, 2003.