The Trade Ministers of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation countries will continue to discuss the list of environmentally-friendly goods for which import duties might be reduced by 2015, Russian Economic Development Minister Andrei Belousov said Wednesday.
Belousov was speaking after the first day of a ministerial conference in the framework of the APEC summit in Vladivostok.
"A list of 20 positions was compiled for the year. I am absolutely sure that this is not the limit. Today several developed countries expressed criticism that this list is too short, and the decision was made to return to the matter tomorrow," he said. This list has been under development for nearly a decade, and there have still been no results, Belousov said.
A declaration of the leaders of the APEC countries with regards to the list of green goods was adopted last November. At the end of August 2011, project director at the APEC National Business Center Maxim Golovinov said that the APEC participants who have been tasked with identifying the list of goods to receive discounted import duties from 0 percent to 5 percent by Sept. 7 might not manage to agree on the matter by that date.
"The negotiations are going forward with complications," he said. "The list of goods and services that is currently being discussed has been slashed in comparison with what it was. The discussions began with roughly 200 goods, and now there are only several dozen," Golovinov said.
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