ST PETERSBURG, Russia - Eight former Soviet republics in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) signed a trade agreement on Tuesday that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said would strengthen bonds in the loose regional grouping.
Putin plans to return to Russia’s presidency next year and has signalled he will seek to increase Moscow’s influence among ex-Soviet states. He called earlier this month for the eventual creation of a Eurasian Union.
"This is a fundamental document that will serve as a basis for relations for a long time," Putin said of the Free Trade Zone pact, signed after a meeting of prime ministers from the 11-nation CIS.
But three members — energy-rich Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — did not sign the new agreement, underscoring the persistent rifts in a grouping sometimes criticised by its own members as little more than a talking shop.
Putin said the pact, due to take effect in January, would replace a 1994 deal that some CIS members never ratified.
He said it would boost trade among them — which he said had increased by 48 percent in the first half of 2011 over the same period in 2010, to $134 billion — without causing conflicts in trade with other nations.
The pact was signed by Russia, Armenia, Moldova, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Belarus. Putin said the other three CIS states would study the document and consider signing by the end of the year.
The CIS was created in 1991 as the Soviet Union was collapsing and grew to include all former Soviet republics except the three Baltic states. Georgia quit the CIS after a five-day war with Russia in 2008.
Russia has cultivated closer economic ties with smaller groupings, entering a Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan and a five-nation Eurasian Economic Community.
Putin, Russia’s president from 2000 to 2008, revealed last month that he plans to run for a six-year term in the March 2012 presidential election he is likely to win easily.
In a newspaper article this month, Putin said he hopes to create a Eurasian Union building on the Customs Union, which is to remove all barriers to trade, capital and labour movement among its members from next year.
