President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Sheikh Muhammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan held talks in an expanded format with participation of official delegations of the two states.
The head of Uzbekistan stressed that the United Arab Emirates for a short historical period of time - fifty years - created a “miracle” in the desert, becoming one of the world centers of economics, innovation, trade, finance and tourism, and noted the interest of Uzbekistan in cooperation and exchange of experience in these spheres.
Muhammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan highly appreciated the ongoing reforms in Uzbekistan to liberalize the economy, improve the investment climate and strengthen the international prestige of the country.
Today in Uzbekistan there are 107 enterprises with participation of investments from the Emirates, 28 representative offices of firms and companies of our country are opened. They are mainly engaged in the production of textiles, building materials, canned fruit, printing, wholesale trade, rendering services. In 2018, trade turnover between the countries amounted to almost $400 million.
The head of our state noted that this figure has increased compared to previous years, however, taking into account the potential of the parties, it is not enough. In this regard, during negotiations, the issues of comprehensive expansion of bilateral cooperation, strengthening practical cooperation in the trade and economic, investment, innovation, banking, financial, cultural, humanitarian and other fields have been discussed.
Results of the third meeting of the Uzbek-Emirati intergovernmental commission on trade-economic and scientific-technical cooperation, held on March 12 this year in Tashkent, were positively assessed. The intergovernmental commission has been tasked to increase the volume of mutual trade to $1 billion in the coming years, increase the supply of goods, implement joint projects for processing raw materials and manufacturing value-added products.
