Speech by the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev at the meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council

For my part, I would also like to note the fruitful chairmanship of the Belarusian side in the Eurasian Economic Union, during which multilateral practical cooperation has noticeably intensified.

Today, my colleagues' speeches included assessments of the developing difficult situation in the global economy. We in Uzbekistan are fully experiencing the negative impact of the consequences of increased protectionism and sanctions policies, disruption of trade and logistics chains and reduction in investment activity of foreign partners.

I would like to note that further expansion and deepening of mutually beneficial cooperation with the EAEU countries – our natural and traditional partners – is one of the priority areas of our foreign economic policy.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all my colleagues for the support and active participation of your delegations in the work of the International Industrial Exhibition “Innoprom. Central Asia” and the fourth Tashkent Investment Forum held in Uzbekistan since the beginning of this year.

As a result of these events, important agreements were reached, new areas and promising cooperation projects were identified. We intend to expand these platforms, involving more and more leading companies and financial groups of our countries.

Dear participants of the event!

I would like to briefly inform you about the development of multilateral cooperation between Uzbekistan and the Eurasian Economic Union.

Over four years of interaction in the status of an observer state, Uzbekistan's foreign trade turnover with the Union countries has increased by 80 percent and amounted to 18 billion dollars at the end of last year. I am pleased to note the expansion of the range of trade operations, primarily due to the supply of industrial products. The number of joint ventures and projects has tripled.

In March of this year, the fourth meeting of the joint Working Group was successfully held, following which agreed measures were developed to gradually eliminate technical barriers, deepen industrial cooperation and stimulate business initiatives.

We have begun implementing a new three-year Plan, covering about 40 specific events.

Uzbekistan is also actively participating in important initiatives of the EAEU, including such projects and programs as the Eurasian Agroexpress, the development of e-commerce, the digitalization of freight transportation and the climate agenda.

In April, we completed all procedures and joined the Agreement on the Establishment of the Eurasian Development Bank. Together with the bank, a promising portfolio of projects for infrastructure modernization in the field of metallurgy, textile, chemical and other strategic industries is being developed.

Dear colleagues!

I would like to outline our vision of the key areas for further development of partnership with the EAEU.

We attach great importance to the creation of favorable conditions for increasing mutual trade turnover.

Uzbekistan fully implements all agreements related to ensuring the operation of the free trade zone between our countries.

We consider it necessary to accelerate the expert development of a number of our proposals aimed at simplifying procedures and bringing together the systems of technical regulation of trade operations.

We are also interested in joining such instruments and mechanisms for supporting trade as the digital system of technical regulation and the ecosystem of digital transport corridors of the EAEU, the Eurasian Reinsurance Company. This will significantly facilitate the conditions for our business, provide favorable conditions for mutual access to commodity markets.

Given the intensive development of modern information technologies and artificial intelligence, we consider multilateral cooperation in the field of digitalization to be promising.

We propose adopting a separate program covering the following areas: e-commerce, digital labeling of goods, creation of new generation logistics platforms, implementation of artificial intelligence technologies in specific industries.

I would also like to note the possibility of Uzbekistan's participation in a single integrated information system of checkpoints. This will primarily speed up border crossings, ensure the effectiveness of monitoring and transparency of all procedures.

From a technical perspective, we are ready to actively participate in such projects.

In order to stimulate the development of cooperation ties, we propose expanding practical cooperation within the framework of the launched programs to support small and medium-sized businesses, including within the framework of joint events with the EAEU Business Council.

We are interested in using the possible of the mechanism for financial support of industrial projects and the platform of the Eurasian network of industrial cooperation and technology transfer.

In the area of ​​ensuring food security, it is important to combine efforts in developing measures aimed at expanding opportunities for cooperation between agricultural producers. This primarily concerns the implementation of our initiative to adopt the Program of agricultural cooperation between Uzbekistan and the EAEU countries, which provides for the introduction of advanced technologies, simplification of the rules for the movement of agricultural goods, effective functioning and expansion of the "green" corridor.

We are actively working with our EAEU partners to simplify procedures and increase the mobility of labor resources. In this regard, we propose holding expert consultations on the issues of convergence of professional standards and qualification requirements in the most popular sectors of the labor market.

If our colleagues support us, we will also join the integrated platform "Work without Borders" launched within the Organization.

Esteemed heads of delegations!

In conclusion, I would like to once again confirm our commitment to expanding practical cooperation within the EAEU.

I am confident that Uzbekistan’s participation in the mentioned multilateral programs and projects will serve to strengthen economic partnership and promote sustainable development of our countries in modern conditions.