On June 10 this year, Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Investment and Foreign Trade of the Republic of Uzbekistan, S. Umurzakov, had a video-conference with European Commissioner for Trade, Phil Hogan. Here, they discussed priorities for the cooperation between Uzbekistan and the European Union in combating the coronavirus pandemic, as well as some relevant cooperation areas.

The Government of the Republic expressed its gratitude to the European side for financial assistance amounted to EUR 36 million to implement measures reducing the impact of the pandemic on the social and economic development of Uzbekistan.

The attendees defined the priorities for further cooperation, i.e. mitigation of the negative impact of COVID-19 on the economy of Uzbekistan and poverty reduction. It is planned to allocate a significant part of the funding to these areas during the next EU budget 2021-2027 period.

They agreed to intensify the acceleration of approval of the draft agreement on expanded partnership and cooperation between the Republic of Uzbekistan and the European Union and discussed the prospects for the next online 6th round of negotiations in the near future.

The negotiations particularly touched upon measures implemented during the preparation for the 4th meeting of the Working Group for Uzbekistan's accession to the WTO, as well as Uzbekistan's obtaining of the status of a beneficiary country of the EU 'GSP+' system of preferences.

The attendees noted the progress in financial and technical cooperation. They expressed special gratitude to the European side for the first tranche amounted to EUR 10 million under the project for Budget Support for Agriculture and Additional Assistance to Uzbekistan totalling to EUR 40 million.

Besides, they considered practical arrangements for some bilateral events expected for the current year via video-conferencing. These included the 17th meeting of the Uzbekistan-EU Cooperation Committee, the 15th meeting of the Uzbekistan-EU Subcommittee on Economics, Trade and Investments, and the 3rd meeting of the Uzbekistan-EU Subcommittee on Cooperation of Development.