In the 1990s, Russia and the Central Asian republics were weakened economically and faced declines in GDP. The member states of the union underwent economic reforms and privatisation. The process of Eurasian integration began immediately after the break-up of the Soviet Union. When the USSR began to fall in 1991, the presidents of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia of the founding republics signed the Belavezha Accords on 8 December 1991, declaring that the Soviet Union would cease to exist and proclaimed the Commonwealth of Independent States in its place.