On July 28 this year, Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Investment and Foreign Trade of the Republic of Uzbekistan S. Umurzakov met with Minister of Trade of the Turkish Republic R. Pekcan in Ankara during the visit of the Governmental Delegation to Turkey.

The meeting provided constructive exchange of views on the current dynamics of trade relations, as well as on the prospects to further increase mutual trade through specific measures.

The discussion emphasized the strategic nature of the trade and economic partnership between Uzbekistan and Turkey, which demonstrated the stable growth for the last years: the trade in 2019 amounted to USD 2.5 billion increasing by 22.7% compared to the previous year. The parties reaffirmed their mutual desire to increase mutual trade to USD 5 billion in the short term despite the impact of the pandemic. Here, they noted the priority of acceleration of approval of the draft Agreement on Preferential Trade currently being worked out by the experts and specialists from the relevant departments of the two countries.

They also discussed a number of pressing concerns related to the bilateral relations in the trade and economic areas, including the measures taken to intensify cooperation between the quarantine services of the two countries under the joint elaboration of the Agreement on Cooperation between the Government of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the Government of the Republic of Turkey in plant quarantine, which would reduce the costs of Uzbek and Turkish entrepreneurs when supplying products to the markets of the two countries.

The parties paid particular attention to the strengthening of cooperation in transportation and logistics: here, they noted that in January this year, the railroad administrations of Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Uzbekistan signed a protocol on the introduction of tariff discounts amounted to 50-70% for cargo transportation. During the meeting, the Turkish side was invited to consider the accession of the Turkish railway administration to this protocol.

Also, the Turkish side received appreciation for supporting Uzbekistan during the 4th meeting of the Working Group on Uzbekistan's accession to the World Trade Organization.

Separately, the parties considered the progress in the Action Plan for Economic Cooperation between the Republic of Uzbekistan and the Republic of Turkey signed during a high-level visit to Turkey in February this year. The parties agreed to coordinate efforts and introduce a new monitoring mechanism to ensure the unconditional execution of all points.

The meeting resulted in identification of actions under the designated areas of cooperation and agreement on closer coordination of interaction at the level of foreign economic departments of the two countries.