TASHKENT – Uzbekistan will become the ninth member of the CIS free-trade zone by the end of 2012, Sergei Lebedev, chairman of the CIS executive committee, said during a summit of CIS heads of government in Yalta, Ukraine, September 28, according to RIA Novosti.

The pact is meant to create favourable conditions for further integration on the basis of World Trade Organisation norms. It will supersede existing bilateral and multilateral free-trade agreements among CIS member-states, Ferghana News reported.

Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan and Ukraine have signed the free-trade zone agreement last October, but only five – Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia and Moldova – have ratified it, according to Ferghana News.