BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 4. Over the past four years, the volume of freight traffic through Azerbaijani infrastructure has increased five times and reached one million tons in 2024, the Director of the Institute of Strategic and Interregional Studies under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Eldor Aripov said, Trend reports.
He made the announcement at the second meeting of the Azerbaijan-Uzbekistan Expert Council on “Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan: promising directions of development of mutually beneficial cooperation.”
According to him, such close interaction has become possible due to the high level of political dialogue and personal trusting relations between the leaders of Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.
“Over the past three years, we have signed the most important treaty on allied relations and established the Supreme Interstate Council, which coordinates all key areas of interaction. Such a level of cooperation in such a short period is a rare example in international practice,” Aripov noted.
He emphasized that since 2017, the two countries have held about 150 visits between them at various levels, which indicates the high dynamics of bilateral dialogue.
In addition, he noted that although the current indicators may seem moderate, the growth rates are impressive: over the past eight years, trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan has increased eightfold, and the number of joint ventures has increased fivefold. Active work is underway to replace imports from third countries and deepen industrial cooperation.
“We already have joint ventures in the production of cars, and clusters have been created in the textile and silk industries. We also see great prospects in energy cooperation - both in the development of fields and green energy,” he added.
The official noted the importance of Azerbaijan's transit potential and reiterated Uzbekistan's interest in further expansion of transport and logistics interaction.
“Azerbaijan has a unique strategic position. We are interested in the development of joint projects - in particular, railway routes connecting China and Uzbekistan, as well as in the full-scale use of the potential of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route. This direction is also interesting for the Azerbaijani side,” he emphasized.