Barriers of the EAEU Common Market for Foreign Activity of Enterprises

The article deals with the results of EAEU key manufacturing enterprises survey aimed at identifying barriers for trade and economic cooperation within EAEU common market elimination of which is one of the key tasks for further integration in EAEU. The study focuses on issues of general availability of EAEU markets and specific barriers and obstacles on the EAEU common market. The approach of the study differs from previous ones in the following ways. Firstly we considered both exporting and not exporting enterprises. Secondly the UNCTAD non-tariff barriers classification being employed for survey external barriers list was strongly modified to simplify the interpretation of barriers by enterprises. Besides two quasi-barriers of high competition and lack of information were added. The survey results showed high availability and the absence of any crucial barriers within the EAEU common market: from 70 to 90% of them considered EAEU common market to be generally available despite two thirds out of them have indicated some or another barriers on the common market. The key barriers of the common market are quasi-barriers of hard competition and lack of information along with such non-tariff barriers as restrictions of competition, technical barriers and barriers and obstacles related to finance regulation. Given the survey results some recommendations are proposed to reduce the identified obstacles for EAEU industrial enterprises on the EAEU common market. The results of the study will be helpful in developing measures for boosting foreign trade activities and cooperation of both industrial enterprises and the EAEU member states on the whole.