On 18 September 2023, the 4th meeting of the Joint Commission at the level of the heads of government of Russia and Uzbekistan took place in Moscow.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said at the meeting: “For us, Uzbekistan is one of the leading economic partners in the Central Asian region. Russia, in turn, occupies the first place in foreign trade with Uzbekistan.”
During the meeting, some key indicators of Uzbek-Russian cooperation were announced. Here are their summaries:
- In 2022, mutual trade turnover exceeded 600 billion rubles, an increase of more than 25%. In January-July 2023, this indicator grew by almost 14.5%, to about 470 billion rubles. Over the past five years, mutual trade has grown at an average annual rate of 20%.
- More than 50% of trade is conducted in rubles.
- In 2023, trade turnover is expected to reach $10 billion.
- Total Russian investments account for one-fifth of the total volume of foreign investments in the Uzbek economy. The total accumulated Russian investments in Uzbekistan exceeds 1 trillion rubles.
- Priority areas of cooperation include industrial cooperation, metallurgy, automotive, pharmaceuticals, railway engineering, agricultural machinery, the agro-industrial complex, textile industry, transport infrastructure, gas processing, and energy. Industrial cooperation projects are being actively implemented in the mining and metallurgical industry, energy, chemical, agricultural, machine-building, and electrical industries.
- Examples of cooperation: Creation of a new modern gas processing complex at the Kandym group of fields; development of the Shakhpakhty and Jel fields; Creation of the Chirchik chemical technopark in the Tashkent region; Launch of a technopark in the Jizzakh region of Uzbekistan; Preparation of an agreement on the creation of similar parks in Navoi and Bukhara regions
- There are about 3,000 enterprises with the participation of Russian capital operating in Uzbekistan.
- Russian investors are ready to participate in the modernization of airport infrastructure.
- Uzbekistan supports the development of the North–South international corridor and is interested in jointly launching a new multimodal transport corridor Belarus–Russia–Kazakhstan– Uzbekistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan. An important aspect of the implementation of this initiative is the construction of a railway along the trans-Afghan corridor.
- Uzbekistan maintains trade and economic relations with more than 80 Russian entities. The leaders are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Moscow, Chelyabinsk, Orenburg, and Sverdlovsk regions.
- More than 60,000 students from Uzbekistan study at universities in Russia, almost 14,000 study at the expense of Russian scholarships.
- In the 2023/2024 academic year, the government quota for the student admission from Uzbekistan to Russian higher education institutions has been increased from 650 to 800 places.
- There are 14 branches of Russian universities operating in Uzbekistan, including MSU, Moscow State Institute of International relations, Herzen Pedagogical University. New branches are planned to open in the future.
- In total, there are more than 10,000 secondary schools in Uzbekistan, and 10% of them are with the Russian language of instruction.
- Almost 350,000 Russian tourists visited Uzbekistan in the first half of 2023.
///nCa, 20 September 2023
#Uzbekistan, #Russia, #trade_and_economic_cooperation