"We cannot sell oil and gas; we need it ourselves" - Shavkat Mirziyoyev

The President touched on the issue of entering new markets with quality and competitive products.

"In recent years, the fact that we increased the volume of production by 1.5 times, ensured high growth rates in our economy.

One thing needs to be understood correctly: we cannot ensure high economic growth by selling oil and gas resources like some countries. This is what we all need to know. We do not have such resources.

After all, our population is increasing - we need it, we cannot sell it abroad. We are doing a lot about it. God willing, this year our people will realize what we have done.

But I would like to note once again, we cannot ensure high economic growth at the expense of oil and gas sales. Both our "oil" and "gas" are high-quality products created from raw materials by initiative entrepreneurs like you. We don't have the opportunity to sell oil and gas, we need it ourselves," the President said.

The head of state said that work is underway to create additional value from raw materials and resources.

"I believe in you. We have created the added value from cotton. We are making great progress in creating additional value from the remaining resources and raw materials.

Let's look at the kaolin as an example. We are bringing kaolin products from abroad. They take kaolin from us and sell it back to us as a product. We import coal from abroad, and we have raw materials like coal, kaolin and uranium within our reserves. But we have not utilized this opportunity until recently... New opportunities, tools, and conditions will be created in this area, and big projects will be implemented," the head of state said.

It was emphasized that in order to produce a high quality product, which is in high demand and competitive in foreign markets, it is necessary to take production to a completely new level and make a sharp increase.

Taking into account that logistics costs have increased by 3-4 times due to the situation in the international arena, the state consistently continues to support exporting enterprises. Financial opportunities will be expanded for them.

An additional $100 million will be allocated to offset logistics costs. Also, another $25 million will be allocated for the certification of products abroad, introduction of international standards and training of specialists in this regard.

The program "New Uzbekistan - the country of competitive products" will be continued this year and the number of enterprises covered by the program will be increased to 500. All program benefits will continue for them.