The Eurasian Development Bank said on Tuesday that the level of integration in the CIS remained virtually unchanged in 2009-2012, signaling the potential reversal of the disintegration trend of the last two decades.

The EDB's Centre for Integration Studies made the findings during a new stage of its research project, which is called "System of Indicators of Eurasian Integration." The project is based on analyzing official statistics of the CIS countries from 1999-2012. It covers a wide range of areas for measuring the countries' integration, from macroeconomic policies to student mobility.

EDB researchers found that while the disintegration trend may be reversing, there has been no qualitative breakthrough as of yet.

The research showed that based on the overall level of integration for all the post-Soviet countries, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and Tajikistan have been the three leaders since 2008. While Tajikistan was in the lead over the period of 2002-2008, it demonstrated a lower level of integration in 2009-2012. Georgia and Azerbaijan have improved their level of integration with the CIS region over the last four years.

The leaders in specific areas of integration in the CIS include Belarus for trade, Kyrgyzstan for power exchange, Tajikistan for labor migration and agriculture, and Turkmenistan for education. Industry leaders for integration were based on indicators relative to the countries' gross domestic product and population size.

The EDB is an international financial institution founded by Russia and Kazakhstan in January 2006. The bank's mission is to facilitate the development of market economies and sustainable economic growth, while expanding mutual trade and other economic ties in its member states.