BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 7
Trend:
The prospects for signing bilateral Free Trade Agreement were considered during a meeting of Uzbek Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Investments and Foreign Economic Affairs Sardor Umurzakov and South Korean Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Sung Yun-mo, a source in the Uzbek ministry said, Trend reports referring to nuz.uz news website.
Following the negotiations held in Seoul, the parties agreed to accelerate the transition to the stage of inter-ministerial coordination of the draft Free Trade Agreement between Uzbekistan and the Republic of Korea. The corresponding preliminary research was completed in late June 2020.
The positive dynamics of the development of mutual trade was stressed at the meeting. The trade turnover between the countries grew by 27 percent up to $2.7 billion in 2019, which is the highest indicator over the last five years. There are all the prerequisites, including those within the Free Trade Agreement, to bring the mutual trade turnover up to $5 billion by 2023.
Moreover, the parties agreed on a format for cooperation within the further implementation of the project to create Uzbekistan’s National Electronic Commerce Platform, which is carried out through the attracted grants from South Korea.
Special attention was paid to the current state and prospects for the development of investment cooperation, including the implementation of the agreements reached during the high-level visits.
The total cost of a package consisting of 79 priority investment projects today is $17.3 billion. The importance of close bilateral cooperation was stressed to minimize the risk of delays in the project implementation and to render the targeted assistance to the initiators of these projects from the governments of the two countries.
The opportunities for enhancing investment cooperation by jointly developing the additional projects in the field of engineering, electric power industry, mining sector, petrochemical industry, chemical industry, food industry and pharmaceutical industry, production of building materials and other spheres were also noted.
Following the meeting, an agreement was reached to hold the 10th meeting of the Uzbek-Korean intergovernmental committee on trade and economic cooperation alongside a business forum of the two countries in October 2020 in Seoul.