Uzbek FM refers to Mirziyoyev’s visit to Kazakhstan as ‘breakthrough’
In particular, the Head of Uzbek Ministry of Foreign Affairs told about the ministry's activity results in developing external economic relations, attracting foreign investments and advanced technologies, developing tourism and strengthening the international image of the Republic of Uzbekistan.
Abdulaziz Kamilov started his speech with the figures achieved during the reported period.
"Since September last year to the present day we have organized and made 12 top-level visits. The state visits of the Uzbek President to Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Russia and China were the breakthrough ones. They resulted in signing 239 contracts and agreements to the amount of nearly $37.7bn", the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan noted.
Altogether, the number of trade and investment agreements and contracts for the 9-month period was over 320 equaling to nearly $44bn. To ensure absolute and full-scale implementation the ministry approved the plans for practical actions (roadmaps) with 13 countries.
As to expanding export of domestic commodities, the foreign missions assisted to the national companies in concluding contracts for delivery of fruits and vegetables, textile products, construction materials, automotive machinery, agricultural engineering and consumer electronic equipment to the near and far-abroad countries. They also assisted in opening trading houses of Uzbek enterprises in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Pakistan, Afghanistan and many other countries.
The diplomatic corps and representative offices of international organizations accredited in Tashkent and the diplomatic missions of the country helped in attracting foreign grants and technical assistance exceeding $240 million to Uzbekistan last year. Besides, he emphasized that they are doing the work on enhancing investment attractiveness of Uzbekistan abroad and shaping a positive image of the republic in the environment of foreign business community. According to him, the issue on the so-called ‘child labour' has already been take off from the tables of the country relations with the International Labour Organization, the USA and a series of the European Union countries. In addition, they approved the agreement on bilateral trade of textile products. It gives an opportunity not only for exporting the Uzbek textile to Europe but also for attracting foreign investors in this sphere.
Kamilov also touched on the issue of attracting mass tourist flow to Uzbekistan.
"The ministry is working on facilitating the entry visa issuance procedure for big and reliable foreign investors and highly-skilled specialists. Presently, the citizens of 13 states (Austria, Belgium, UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, Latvia, Malaysia, Thailand, France, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Japan) visiting Uzbekistan for business purposes undergo a simplified visa issuance procedure. We are considering issuance of multiple visas in a simplified procedure for Turkish and Chinese businessmen", he added. In addition to that, the minister pointed out a number of the current challenging issues.
The minister advised that the Uzbek MFA had asked experts of the prestigious financial organizations, businessmen and foreign investors on the main causes of the low-level foreign investment in the economy. As a result, they mentioned several factors and conditions that restrain the investment flow to Uzbekistan. These include the problems in currency conversion and repatriation of profits; imperfectness of the banking and credit system; weak protection of investor rights and inadequately effective judicial system; administrative bureaucratic barriers; low investment ratings. A lot of foreign companies are dissatisfied with the procedure of licenses and permits acquisition.
To improve the results of the MFA and foreign establishments in attracting investments and modern technologies, strengthening inter-ministerial cooperation, the Uzbek FM proposed to take a set of measures. They include approval of Foreign Policy and Trade Strategy for 2017-2021, structural optimization of the diplomatic missions in the foreign countries, etc.