BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 15. The state visit of the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev to Uzbekistan in June 2022 became an important indicator of interregional rapprochement, head of the department of the Institute for Strategic and Interregional Studies under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Milana Bazarova told Trend.
According to her, the scale of the designated guidelines for the upcoming bilateral cooperation, as well as the established personal relations between the leaders of Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, allow concluding that the two countries are moving towards a growing multifaceted dialogue.
"The agreements reached during the visit of President Ilham Aliyev to Uzbekistan provided new introductory points for building up deep points of growth in mutual relation. Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan signed 18 documents and a declaration on deepening the strategic partnership and building up comprehensive cooperation between both sides. The declaration included expanding of commercial and economic cooperation, industrial cooperation, effective use of transport and transit potential," Bazarova said.
She added that there is no doubt that Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan consider each other economically promising partners, the potential for development of cooperation between which has not yet been fully reached. However, it’s pleasing to realize that there is a huge demand for this, especially from large and small businesses.
"Thanks to the joint efforts over only five past years trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan increased by seven times - from $17.1 million up to $118.8 million. If 178 companies with Azerbaijani participation were operating in Uzbekistan at the beginning of 2022, right now that number increased up to 238," Bazarova informed.
The Head of the department stated that Uzbek companies are not yet represented in the Azerbaijani market on such a large scale - their number has reached 53. However, Uzbekistan expects that this figure will steadily increase, especially given the growing interest of Azerbaijani investors in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan assimilated $64.1 million of Azerbaijani investments in 2021. It's expected that Uzbekistan will assimilate investments in the amount of 82.4 million rubles. ($1.3 million) in 2022.
"In the bilateral format, there are ample opportunities for a radical intensification of interaction in a bilateral format, and this is, first of all, the ‘complementarity factor of economies’, which is already being successfully used," Bazarova explained.
She stressed that Uzbekistan believes that it will be mutually beneficial for Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan to strengthen the work to attract Azerbaijani companies to industrial cooperation with Uzbek manufacturers in such areas as the textile industry, leather production, jewelry, etc. And the interest in the presence of Uzbek products is steadily growing in the Azerbaijani market.
"One of the key success factors in the development of Azerbaijani-Uzbek relations is the fact that Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan are united by a common approach to the strategy of internal and external development. Tashkent and Baku are the only states in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) that aren't members of any military-political blocs. At a time when the world is splitting into alliances, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan are playing a ‘fair game’ with global actors, emphasizing the pragmatic diversification of cooperation. This is largely determined by the maintenance of political stability in Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan by its leaders," she pointed out.
Bazarova added that reforms carried out by Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Ilham Aliyev are developing in unison with an emphasis on promoting a market economy and flexible integration into the global financial system.
She also commented on the role of transport and logistics projects in strengthening bilateral cooperation and developing of interregional interaction.
"Uzbekistan is aware of what priority Azerbaijan attaches to the formation of an extensive system of transport and logistics corridors. I can say that Uzbekistan also advocates the development of transport connectivity as an important factor in the growth of the country's economy. Today, 6.4 percent of Uzbekistan's GDP comes from transport services, 7.4 percent of total investment and almost 30 percent of the service sector is accounted for by transport. By 2030 plans to increase the capacity of the transit potential by 4.4 times and bring the figure to 6 billion tons," Bazarova informed.
According to her based on a common interest in this key segment, expanding practical cooperation in the field of transport communications is at the center Uzbek-Azerbaijani cooperation agenda.
"With similar geographical advantages, Azerbaijan, along with Uzbekistan, together have the potential to become key transport hubs in their regions. Within the framework of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, both countries act as ‘connecting bridges’ between Central Asia and the South Caucasus, and more broadly, between the continents of Europe and Asia," she explained.
Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan seek to use all opportunities in order to increase mutual cargo transportation and boost the transit potential of both countries. In particular, the possibility to create joint agricultural and logistical clusters, oriented on the processing and export of agricultural production. Today, Uzbekistan uses the transit potential of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars, railway, which ensures entry of Uzbek products on the world market, productively and mutually beneficial.
"The increase in the cargo transportation through the Turkmenbashi international seaport and Baku international trade seaport as well as reconstruction of Zangazur corridor are promising. Uzbekistan is interested in the revival of this important transit section, considering it an economically beneficial project that will bring benefits to all participants without exception. The reopening of this route will become a pillar for resolving contentious issues, will become a factor in ensuring the peaceful coexistence of the two persons and reestablishment of sustainable peace in the region," the head of the department informed.
Bazarova noted that cooperation on these projects can serve to create a single transport network between countries, and ensure deeper integration of all the states of Central Asia and the Caucasus into global supply chains and active participation in the international transit of goods.
She assessed the role of Uzbekistan in the activities of the SCO and commented on Uzbekistan’s achievement of high recognition in SCO.
“Today in the media various kinds of speculation that the SCO may become a kind of 'antithesis' to the West can be seen. However, it’s absolutely obvious that the main role of the Shanghai Organization has been and continues to be only constructive, which Uzbekistan stands for and which was clearly indicated in the recently published 'Samarkand SCO summit: dialogue and cooperation in an interconnected world' article by the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev," she reaffirmed.
She emphasized that despite its internal ‘diversity’ in terms of starting potential, and the level of socio-economic and political development, this Organization has managed to find a universal model of relationships. The attractiveness of the SCO is that it actively promotes the concept of multifaceted cooperation, does not ‘profess’ the ideas of bloc thinking, and doesn’t direct its activities against other nations and nationalities. Instead, the Organization is identifying new ‘points of growth’ - this time, under the chairmanship of Uzbekistan, the points will be the development of transport, energy, food and environmental security, innovation, digital modernization and the ‘green’ economy.
”It was not in vain that I indicated these areas because they reflect how depoliticized, how economically determined Uzbekistan approaches the development of the Shanghai Organization. We proceed from the fact that cooperation within the framework of the SCO could bring tangible bonuses to the ‘treasury’ of development not only of the country itself but also of Uzbekistan's partners. Perhaps this is what allows states to join the initiatives of the country without undue fear,” Bazarova said.
According to her, the priorities put forward by Uzbekistan during her chairmanship can be seen as Tashkent's appeals to its fellow SCO members to rethink the value of multilateral cooperation in the face of growing conflict phenomenons, multiplying dividing lines in the relations between small and large countries. Only the desire for a pragmatic dialogue, mutual respect, and mutual readiness to meet each other's needs can ‘narrow the growing gulf’ between states, and ‘keep the world’ from the dangerous line it's approaching.
She expressed that this format of relations seems to be more true than ever, and most importantly practical, given that it formed the basis for the development of both Uzbekistan’s regional policy and relations with countries on the global stage, including in the framework of cooperation with international structures
"Expectations from the upcoming SCO summit in Samarkand are connected not only with the determination of the further trajectory of the development of the SCO as such. Uzbekistan hopes that this event, having gathered on its platform the interests and aspirations of countries representing different continents in this difficult period of geopolitical changes, will help each of its participants to 'take away' practical and tangible results with them," Bazarova concluded.