On July 8, the first meeting of the Working Group on increasing trade turnover between Russia and Uzbekistan was held at the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation. On the Russian side it was headed by the Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov, on the Uzbek side by the Minister of Investment, Industry and Trade Laziz Kudratov.
The event was dedicated to discussing the goal set by the presidents of Russia and Uzbekistan during the first meeting of the Council of Regions of the two countries in May in Tashkent - to increase the volume of mutual trade to $30 billion by 2030.
Taking part in the discussion, Vice President of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Vladimir Padalko noted that accelerating the procedure for the Republic of Uzbekistan to join the agreement on the Rules for Determining the Country of Origin of Goods in the Commonwealth of Independent States of November 20, 2009 will play an important role in increasing trade turnover.
“There are more than 3 thousand enterprises with Russian participation in Uzbekistan. Such dynamics in the development of economic relations shows that the task set is achievable,” said Russian Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov.
He also emphasized that to achieve the trade mark of 30 billion US dollars, joint work of Russian and Uzbek departments in conjunction with the scientific community is necessary. In his opinion, it is necessary to implement current and new cooperation projects, remove barriers and provide support to small and medium-sized businesses.
The main targets and tasks that require solutions in the next six years were outlined by Deputy Minister Dmitry Volvach: “Together with VAVT and the Ministry of Investment, Industry and Trade of the Republic of Uzbekistan, we prepared an agreed forecast - for which goods and by how much it is necessary to increase mutual supplies in order to fulfill the assigned task. The annual growth rate must be at least 17% to achieve trade volumes of up to US$30 billion in six years.” According to the forecast, Russian exports should grow 2.7 times and reach $18.2 billion, and Uzbekistan’s exports should grow 3.6 times to $11.8 billion.”
The meeting participants also discussed issues of the energy sector, industrial cooperation, and agro-industrial sphere. Thus, in development of the agreements between the leaders of the Russian Federation and Uzbekistan, supplies of oil and petroleum products will be increased, and Russian companies will also open gas stations in the republic. Taking into account the fact that about 40-45% of all Uzbek textiles produced are exported to Russia, the republic plans to increase the volume of supplies to the Russian Federation to 5 billion US dollars.
“It is necessary to further increase the supply of food products. This will be facilitated by the Agroexpress project and the development of a network of agrological complexes in Uzbekistan and Russia. In Uzbekistan, a logistics center was opened in Jizzakh last October. It needs to be connected to railroad tracks. We know about the intention of the Uzbek side regarding the opening of logistics centers in the regions of Russia. Thanks to the implementation of these plans, we will increase Russian supplies of meat, fish, oils, grain, sugar and confectionery to Uzbekistan. In turn, we will buy vegetables, fruits, nuts, coffee, tea,” said Dmitry Volvach.
Regarding the development of e-commerce, the parties discussed the Wildberries and Ozone platforms operating in Uzbekistan.
The meeting participants agreed to hold meetings of the Working Group on increasing trade turnover on a quarterly basis.

By Olga Stayun,  

Department of External Relations