BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 24. The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) is currently implementing projects focusing on advancing economic competitiveness and safeguarding the environment in Uzbekistan, a spokesperson for the organization told Trend.
According to the spokesperson from UNIDO, the organization is also targeting such sectors as textiles and garments, and is contributing to the environmental sustainability of these industries through the introduction of resource efficient practices.
"Within the framework of our project on sustainable upgrading of the textile and garment industries in Uzbekistan, UNIDO is supporting economic diversification and improved access to both regional and broader international markets," the representative of UNIDO said.
The UNIDO representative said that earlier on May 31, the project launch event took place in Uzbekistan’s Tashkent, bringing together key project partners including representatives from the Uztextileprom (association of textile and garment knitwear enterprises of Uzbekistan), the Russian Embassy in Uzbekistan, as well as various further representatives from the private sector.
"The project will support strengthening the productivity, competitiveness, and collective export capacities of manufacturing companies, as well as the application of new innovative approaches for branding and marketing, product design. All of this will strengthen national human and technical capacities in business networking, enhancing institutional partnerships among producers and with global value chain operators," the spokesperson emphasized.
The representative from UNIDO stressed that the organization officially launched the Technical Support for the Transformation of Two Industrial Zones of Uzbekistan into Eco-Industrial Parks (EIP) project this year, including a launch webinar conducted with government representatives in March 2024.
"This project will contribute to improving the environmental, economic, and social performance of industries in Uzbekistan and strengthen the role of business service providers there through the implementation of EIP approaches in selected pilot industrial parks, also aiming for an increased role of EIP in environmental and industrial policies at the national level," the spokesperson at UNIDO said.
According to the source, the project will also analyze potential candidate industrial parks that are best situated to be developed into EIPs and aim to help industrial parks and the tenants of small and medium-sized enterprises meet international EIP standards to improve their environmental, social, and economic performance.
Meanwhile, as per data from UNIDO's open data platform, the organization's total budget for projects in Uzbekistan reaches $3 million, while the budget for 2024 amounts to $872,564.