Central Asian countries working on holding a regional economic forum in Uzbekistan
Central Asian countries intend to hold the first regional economic forum in Uzbekistan this fall. This is reported by the Uzbek media with reference to unnamed source in the ministry of foreign trade of this country. In the opinion of the ministry’s representative, “the forum will serve as a new platform to establish direct dialogue between business communities and regional authorities in the sphere of trade, industry, will help to identify the best conditions for the access of Central Asian goods and services to foreign markets”. He also emphasized in interview with Podrobno.uz that the region has already done a lot of work on the diversification of cooperation and the development of industrial cooperation. The official cited as examples the joint assembly of cars and specialized agricultural machinery, active development of cross-border trade. Tashkent intends to continue to stand for trade facilitation in the region, to promote cooperation between the business circles and is ready to take concrete and effective steps in this direction. In this regard, the Uzbekistan’s government adopted a decision on the reduction or the nullification of the tariffs on import and transportation of the large quantities of goods. -Naturally, the main beneficiaries of these measures will be the countries of Central Asia. We expect a response from neighbouring countries. The countries of the region are natural markets for each other. Our national economies do not compete with each other, and in many sectors they complement each other. In this, we see great prospects for cooperation, the official added. It should be reminded that in the regional format the issues of expanding cooperation in the direction of innovation, mutual support in the field of export and import between the countries were widely discussed at the consultative meeting of the heads of Central Asian States in Astana in March. At the same time, all parties reaffirmed the commitment to turn Central Asia into steadily developing economy and comprehensively prosperous region, based on regional interests.
