OREANDA-NEWS. May 03, 2013. Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia is important trade partners of Ukraine, therefore, to develop further cooperation with them Ukraine is working to obtain observer status in the MS and Ukraine is also studying the processes occurring in this association. A Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Yuriy Boyko said in an interview to the Inter TV channel.

"The President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych instructed to study the experience of the Customs Union countries. Fundamentally important for us not to lose at least the level of trade with these countries - today it is over USD 60 billion. And to fully understand what is going on and not to lose trade turnover, we should have a status. Today there are negotiations that Ukraine will receive the status of observer in the Eurasian Economic Commission," Yuriy Boyko said.

Vice Prime Minister added that negotiations are being conducted in a bilateral format.

"We have talks in a bilateral format with our partners, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia. When this process to be completed we will have negotiations with the Eurasian Commission," he said.
Yuriy Boyko noted that concerning cooperation Ukraine with the Customs Union and the European Union was made a lot of applications, but most of them were purely political and not based on economic calculations.

He added that the obtaining an observer status for Ukraine will reliably evaluate the pros and cons of the Customs Union.