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The three members of the Customs Union - Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus - plan to unite their financial markets by 2020, an official from the Eurasian Economic Commission says.

The Customs Union, which is was launched at the start of 2010, is only a first step to creating the Eurasia Economic Union (EEU) by 2015, a bloc intended to be similar to the EU, but which is planned to go well beyond trade. The goal is to fully integrate the economies (soon to number four, as Kyrgyzstan has now formally applied for membership) in terms of financial markets, labour and administration.

Timur Suleimanov, economy and financial policy minister of the Eurasian Economic Commission said: "On the whole, under existing agreements and commitments, 2020 is the year when we have to come to a common financial market, when mutual acknowledgment of licenses and other permitting documents are provided, and when participants have non-discriminatory access to each other's markets."

The Eurasian Economic Commission was established in January 2012 to manage the integration process of the Customs Union. The integration of financial markets and the harmonization of legislations of the three countries, including the banking and insurance sectors and the stock market, will be held in several stages. The harmonization of terms and requirements for staff will be worked out by 2016, Suleimanov said.

"Within the third stage, which is due to finish by 2020, we want to complete the harmonization of laws which will oversee the financial sphere, and that will be the final point, which will enable us to say that rules on the financial markets are practically the same," Suleimanov said reports Ria Novosti.

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