ASTANA – Kazakh Minister of Trade and Integration Arman Shakkaliyev and Uzbek Minister of Investment, Industry and Trade Laziz Kudratov signed a protocol on expanding mutual cooperation at a Jan. 5 meeting in Tashkent, reported the Kazakh Trade and Integration Ministry’s press service.
Kazakh Minister of Trade and Integration Arman Shakkaliyev and Uzbek Minister of Investment, Industry and Trade Laziz Kudratov. Photo credit: gov.kz
The ministers discussed the stages of implementation of agreements within the roadmaps signed following President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s visit to Uzbekistan in December 2022, including the one on increasing trade turnover between the two countries to $10 billion.
The negotiations focused on issues of transit and transport policy, modernization of border checkpoints infrastructure, cross-border and regional cooperation, and the preparation for the fourth Forum of Interregional Cooperation between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
The Kazakh delegation visited Tashkent’s technopark with over 20 high-tech, competitive, export-oriented enterprises, reviewing the prospects for expanding Uzbek-Kazakh industrial cooperation and business ties.
Last May, a trade mission of Kazakh commodity and service providers in Tashkent, organized as part of the 20th meeting of the joint intergovernmental commission on bilateral cooperation, resulted in export contracts worth over $44.1 million for the supply of construction materials, confectionery products, IT services, and dairy products to Uzbekistan.
The International Center for Industrial Cooperation – Central Asia industrial zone, established on the Kazakh-Uzbek state border last month, is expected to increase the export of domestic products to the Uzbek market.
In 11 months of 2023, trade turnover between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan totaled $4.1 billion.
