President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko is set to take part in the sessions of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation and the EurAsEC Interstate Council. The sessions will take place in Moscow on February 4, BelTA learnt from the presidential press service.

 The CSTO Heads of State will consider the budget of the Organisation for 2009 and an idea to set up SCTO response forces.

The initiative to set up the CSTO response forces has been put forward by the presidents of , , , and during an informal meeting in on December 19-21 2008. The CSTO Secretariat jointly with the Russian side has developed the relevant draft decision of the CSTO Collective Security Council. The document enshrines setting up response forces consisting of CSTO full alert mobile and military units and formation of special-purpose forces embracing special-purpose subdivisions of the security and interior bodies as well as competent authorities in preventing and mitigating consequences of emergencies.

CSTO response forces will be based within the collective rapid deployment forces of Central Asia region and other CSTO regional groupings and forces.

The issues of founding an anti-crisis fund and the EurAsEC High Technology Centre will top the agenda of the EurAsEC Interstate Council summit. The decision to set up a joint EurAsEC $10-billion anti-crisis fund was fixed in the protocol of the informal summit of the presidents of , , , and on December 19-21 2008. The fund is set to issue sovereign and stabilization loans to the participating states for overcoming negative outcomes of the global financial and economic crisis, provide loans for foreign trade transactions between the EurAsEC member-states and finance interstate investment projects.

According to the experts, the major goal of the EurAsEC High Technology Centre will be joint development and implementation of sci-tech programmes and innovation projects. It will help form the EurAsEC common research area and attract a large number of scientists.

The EurAsEC Customs Union is being formed in line with the relevant plan approved by the leaders of the three countries in Dushanbe on October 6, 2007, the press service said.

On January 25, 2008, the EurAsEC Interstate Council signed nine intergovernmental agreements that defined the fundamentals of forming the common foreign trade policy, technical regulations, customs and tax administration.

At the 22nd session of the EurAsEC Interstate Council on December 12, 2008 the Heads of Government of the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation inked 14 more international agreements targeting further development of the treaty-legal base of the Customs Union, in the areas of customs and taxation, technical regulations, customs administration, and the Agreement on the Customs Union Commission Secretariat.

On November 26, 2008 the troika session decided on further elaboration of the draft basic list of the unified customs tariff based on the similar rates for customs import duties in the participating states. This approach will help reach a higher level of unification of customs tariffs of the three countries. The Customs Union Commission is expected to continue directing the basic list of the unified customs tariff. The sides are to coordinate the issue by April 1, 2009.

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