TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, May 2. Cooperation with the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) will reach fundamentally new level, Board Chairman of Uzbekneftegaz company Bahodir Siddikov told Trend on the sidelines of the second Tashkent International Investment Forum (ТIIF-2023).
"We have been actively cooperating with SOCAR for many years. We are friends as two companies, and we have a lot of areas in which we learn more from SOCAR. One of the areas is the introduction of a production sharing agreement (PSA) system," Siddikov noted. "As noted today, each PSA in Azerbaijan is approved by the parliament, that is, it has the nature of a law. This is one of the areas that we also strive for."
"PSAs in Uzbekistan are also concluded on behalf of the state, but precisely in order to give guarantees for changes. This will become big, serious step for investors," he also said.
According to Siddikov, Uzbekneftegaz and SOCAR have established a joint system of education and training of personnel in the field of increasing operational efficiency.
"We also have very broad cooperation in the direction of studying new projects. So far there are details that I cannot tell you about, but I can say that this year we are starting a completely different level of relations thanks to the meeting that took place between the heads of state of the two countries at the beginning of the year," the Uzbek official noted.
"We have clear instructions for bringing the cooperation to the fundamentally new level. This is about joint investments and joint projects. We are now considering the issue of joint trading," he said.
"We know about the very successful experience of SOCAR Trading. Already in the next few days we plan to send our group to exchange experience in trading areas. I believe that in the near future we’ll see such serious stages," Siddikov added.
Tashkent International Investment Forum is a large-scale dialogue platform for the entire Central Asian region, which allows presenting the investment potential of Uzbekistan to international investment and business communities.
The forum is aimed to attract big foreign investment, financial and economic organizations, and companies interested in integrating into the dynamically developing market of Uzbekistan.
ТIIF-2023 was attended by over 2,500 people from the US, UK, Türkiye, China, India, Egypt, EU, CIS, Southeast Asia and Middle East countries. For comparison, last year more than 1,500 people applied for participation.
This year, a plenary session, as well as 28 panel sessions and round tables, a number of ceremonies for signing major investment agreements and trade contracts, discussions on current topics in the business world, including investment sector development trends, digitalization of financial institutions, and modern monetary-credit policy with participation of more than 150 speakers were held.
The event lasted until April 28, 2023.