Sanjar Valiyev: Uzbekistan needs to speed up the process of joining the WTO 

“WTO minimizes barriers to trade as much as possible. If we want to expand trade with long-term partners, it is very important for Uzbekistan to speed up the process of joining the organization,” the expert said. 

According to him, Uzbekistan has already implemented the core activities of the preparatory phase for joining the WTO. 

“In July, at the WTO headquarters, we passed an updated memorandum on the foreign trade regime of Uzbekistan. The transfer of this document is an official start of negotiations on accession to the WTO. It can even be called a resumption of negotiations, because we had made efforts in the early 2000s, but then the conditions did not allow us to complete this process,” Valiyev added.

The resumption of the process of Uzbekistan’s accession to the WTO was identified by Shavkat Mirziyoyev as one of the key areas of the country’s development in the trade-economic sphere. Uzbekistan applied to join this organization in 1994. Today, the republic participates in the organization as an observer state.