On January 23, 2019, the first meeting of the Economic Affairs Commission of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries was held in Moscow. Among other things, state representatives discussed a draft Agreement on the interaction of the customs authorities of the CIS member states in the field of intellectual property rights protection.

The adoption of the Agreement will allow the exchange of information between customs authorities of different countries. This will increase the effectiveness of the fight against counterfeit, remove technical and bureaucratic barriers to business.

“Now the interstate exchange of practical work on the fight against counterfeiting is sporadic. And thanks to the signing of the Agreement, the results of the fight against counterfeit products of one CIS member state will be available for use by other countries of the Commonwealth”, the deputy head of the department of trade restrictions, currency and export control of the Federal Customs Service of Russia Ruslan Shtyka explain.

The CIS Executive Committee expects that the Agreement in the current version will be accepted by all or the overwhelming majority of CIS member states, and it will come into operation in early 2020.