On July 6 this year, Seoul hosted the meeting of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Investment and Foreign Trade of the Republic of Uzbekistan S. Umurzakov and Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy of the Republic of Korea Sung Yun-mo. Here, the attendees negotiated on current trends in the development of investment, trade and economic cooperation, as well as mechanisms for its further expansion.

The attendees emphasized the positive dynamics in the development of mutual trade. At the year-end 2019, the commerce between Uzbekistan and Korea increased by 27% and amounted to USD 2.7 billion being the highest figure for the last 5 years. According to the general opinion of the attendees, currently, there are all prerequisites to bring mutual trade up to USD 5 billion by 2023.

From this perspective, they agreed on accelerated transition to the stage of interagency coordination of the draft Free Trade Agreement, which was preliminarily studied at the end of June this year.

The attendees also agreed the form of cooperation under the further implementation of the project to create the National Online Platform for Electronic Commerce of Uzbekistan, which involved the grants allocated by Korea.

The negotiations touched upon the facilitation of the access of fresh and processed fruits and vegetables from Uzbekistan to Korean market. To do this, it is planned to intensify the interaction of quarantine services of the two countries to increase the quality and competitiveness of products exported by Uzbekistan and gain access to the markets of other countries with a high level of domestic market protection. Here, the Korean side will support Uzbekistan in establishing modern laboratories responsible for quarantine of plants and personnel training.

Special attention touched upon the progress and prospects for the development of investment cooperation, including the implementation of the agreements reached during summit talks. Available data demonstrates that total value of the package including 79 priority investment projects currently is USD 17.3 billion. In this regard, the attendees noted the importance of close bilateral cooperation to minimize the risk of delays in project implementation and ensure targeted assistance to the initiators from the Governments of two countries.

Therewith, they emphasized great opportunities to enhance investment cooperation through the joint development of additional projects in engineering, electrical, mining, petrochemical, chemical, food and pharmaceutical industries, production of construction materials, where the Korean business rightfully occupies a leading position in the world.

The negotiations separately considered the prospects of introduction of Korean experience in the production of electric vehicles, IT start-ups, formation of special and venture funds, management of technology parks and innovation centers. For instance, particularly, there will be the study of the possibility to establish production of innovative protective medical suits and masks based on textile technology parks in Uzbekistan.

During the meeting, the Korean side expressed its willingness to systematically develop cooperation with Uzbekistan and facilitate its industrial development by attracting leading Korean companies to joint development and implementation of promising projects.

The parties also agreed to hold the 10th meeting of the Uzbek-Korean Intergovernmental Committee on Trade and Economic Cooperation, as well as organize a Business Forum involving business circles of the two countries in October this year in Seoul.

The meeting resulted in determination of further measure to jointly work out the discussed areas of cooperation through systematic joint work of the relevant ministries of the two countries.