On July 23 this year, Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Uzbekistan - Minister of Investment and Foreign Trade S. Umurzakov negotiated with Vice President of the World Bank for Europe and Central Asia A. Bjerde via video-conferencing.

The dialogue focused on the progress in bilateral cooperation, implementation of the portfolio of joint projects for the first half of the year, progress of the coordination of projects under preparation, as well as promising areas for further interaction with the World Bank in economic reform and structural transformation in Uzbekistan.

The Bank's top officials received appreciation for the prompt consideration of projects aimed at improvement of social and economic situation in the Republic and having a special priority in the current epidemiological situation. Since the beginning of this year, the World Bank has approved financing for 4 such projects totaling more than USD 1 billion.

The parties noted that according to the results of the first half of the year, the disbursed borrowed funds of the World Bank amounted to USD 310.0 million, and the disbursement rate reached one of the highest indexes in the region.

They disclosed that there is active work out of 9 new projects in telecommunication technologies, energy, commercialization of science, urban planning, forestry, as well as improvement of systems for collecting and processing statistical data and tax administration totaling USD 1.5 billion.

The negotiations manifested a particular role of the World Bank in the implementation of large-scale reforms in Uzbekistan. The Bank's experts comprehensively supported the development of the Road Map for the main directions of structural reforms of the Republic of Uzbekistan for 2019-2021, the program of reforming the aviation and energy sectors, economy, the concept of development of the higher education system, the new edition of the Tax Code, strategies of bank system reforming.

Here, the parties discussed further joint actions to reform state-owned enterprises, the banking sector, the aviation industry and other sectors of Uzbek economy.

They disclosed the commitment of the World Bank to further support Uzbekistan in regional development and agreed tasks for the development of universal programs for each region of the Republic with a view to available resources and comparative advantages. Also, there will be a joint work to adopt effective mechanisms to manage public investments that provide high economic returns.

The negotiations resulted in emphasizing the priority tasks for the further cooperation and the parties agreed to intensify efforts in priority areas.