Presidents of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev and the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Mohammed Al Nahyan held talks in a narrow format and with the participation of members of official delegations in Abu Dhabi, the press service of the head of state reported .
They discussed issues of deepening Uzbek-Emirati relations, including in political, trade and economic, investment, innovation, cultural and humanitarian and other priority areas.
It was emphasized that the visit of the President of Uzbekistan to the UAE opens a new page in the history of bilateral relations – they are reaching the level of strategic partnership, the report says.
In recent years, the volume of trade and investment, the number of joint ventures have increased many times over. The frequency of direct flights has increased, a visa-free regime has been introduced, it was noted at the meeting.
During the visit, a solid portfolio of new projects was formed with leading Emirati companies, mainly in high-tech industries. As reported earlier, 15 agreements and memorandums were signed, including a project jointly with Jetex to service VIP and CIP clients at the Tashkent-Vostochny airport under construction, as well as the introduction of air taxi and VIP taxi services.
In order to strengthen political contacts, the importance of developing dialogue between the foreign ministries of the two countries was emphasized.
The leaders of the two countries also identified six key areas of the new model of economic cooperation: artificial intelligence, digitalization, green energy, urban development and infrastructure, tourism, and private business. An agreement was reached to create separate working groups for each priority vector of interaction.
The parties supported the proposal to declare 2025-2027 as a “New Era of Economic Partnership between Uzbekistan and the UAE”. In this context, the key task is to increase mutual trade volumes by 10 times by 2030 and bring the investment portfolio to $50 billion.
For reference: according to the Statistics Agency, for January-September 2024, the volume of foreign trade between Uzbekistan and the UAE amounted to 472.2 million dollars, of which 179.9 million dollars were exports and 292.3 million dollars were imports.
Interest was expressed in strengthening ties between the business circles of the two countries and expanding investment activities of Emirati companies in Uzbekistan.
Particular attention is paid to issues of expanding cultural and humanitarian exchange.
The head of Uzbekistan proposed launching a joint program for training highly qualified personnel and conducting scientific research in the field of artificial intelligence in cooperation with the Muhammad bin Zayed University.
During the talks, preparations for upcoming high-level events were discussed, including the second summit of the Central Asia-Gulf Cooperation Council dialogue, which will be held this year in Samarkand.
The leaders also exchanged views on current aspects of international politics.
