President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev and President of Russia Vladimir Putin held a meeting in the Kremlin.
“First of all, I would like to congratulate you on your sweeping victory at the presidential election. We have spoken many times about your first steps as President of Uzbekistan and mentioned that there is important and difficult work ahead,” Putin said.
“You are doing fine. You are moving forward confidently, upgrading the country, and already there are results. The people can see and feel this, which is why they have reacted positively to what you have accomplished over the past few years. I would like to wholeheartedly congratulate you on this and wish you success during your next presidential term,” the Russian leader said.
“I am confident that cooperation between Russia and Uzbekistan will help increase Uzbekistan’s capabilities and improve the wellbeing of its citizens. Uzbekistan is not only a close neighbor but also an ally, this is how we regard Uzbekistan. It is a major regional country, with which we have many links, both historically and in the current period,” Vladimir Putin stressed.
“At present, Russia accounts for 18 percent of Uzbekistan’s trade. Our mutual trade is increasing: last year it went up by over 15 percent, despite the pandemic. It is a very good indicator showing that we continue interacting quite successfully even in the most difficult periods,” he added.
Putin said that Russia is making considerable investments in Uzbekistan worth over US$10 billion. There are interesting projects and work is underway in all spheres both in the regional and nationwide formats. This concerns the economy, humanitarian ties, and transport infrastructure. There is a large scope for cooperation, and we certainly have so much to talk about.
Shavkat Mirziyoyev said: “First, I am grateful to you for inviting me to visit Russia and for such a warm reception. I would like to emphasize that we have made a breakthrough in our relations over the past few years – we never had such figures before. As you said, our trade is growing: in the last nine months, it already amounted to the US $5 billion and will reach US$7 billion by the end of the year. I am very grateful to you for your support for our mutual agreements.”.
“The Intergovernmental Commission headed by the prime ministers is doing a working very well – you supported this and it was very instrumental. Ministers and sub-commissions are all working. Much was done before the visit. We had three big forums: a regional, and educational, and a media forum,” Mirziyoyev underlines.
“As for the results, we are now working on projects worth a total of US$14 billion. Some of the projects were produced by the inter-regional forum – when we launched it three years ago, we had nothing like this. The results are impressive: meetings between representatives of the regions are a big incentive,” he said.
Uzbek leader said that over 35 agreements were signed following the education forum the day before yesterday. In the past three years, we have opened 11 affiliates of Russian universities. Now we already have 15 affiliates: recently we opened a branch of Pirogov University.
“Cultural and humanitarian cooperation is also making steady progress. This also applies to the military-technical cooperation, which you mentioned, and our transport ties. Our parliaments have developed very good relations – this was not the case before, either. They are working very hard to monitor what is being done and to fulfill their tasks,” he said.
“I believe we have things to discuss because now we have a completely different level of relations. We are intensifying our integration in all areas and it is intensive – before we had agreements between regions and now, we have projects that produce added value. These are serious projects. We have exchanged views on them. We have big projects in metallurgy and they are progressing well. I think today is a good opportunity to discuss these issues – inter-regional, bilateral, security issues and the problem of Afghanistan. I think this is a very good occasion to review serious issues with a view to the future,” Shavkat Mirziyoyev said.
