Distinguished heads of delegations! I am pleased to welcome all participants of the next Central Asia – European Union leaders’ meeting.
I would like to echo the words of thanks to the President of Kyrgyz Republic distinguished Sadyr Nurgojoevich Japarov for the excellent organization of the summit and traditional warm and cordial hospitality extended to us in Cholpon-Ata – one of the most scenic places in our region.
I express special gratitude to the President of the European Union distinguished Mr. Charles Michel.
Your commitment and full support for the de-velopment of constructive political dialogue and multifaceted cooperation with the countries of Central Asia to a large extent determine the efficiency of our contacts.
Dear colleagues!
Less than a year has passed since our first open, trust-based and productive meeting in Astana. During this short period of time, we have jointly done a lot of work. In November last year, together we held a high-level conference in Uzbekistan on regional connectivity, focusing on the promotion of projects in the following areas:
– Digitalization; – Transport communications; – Energy and water management, including those under the framework of the Global Gateway Strategy of our European partners.
A number of major regional projects have been launched to establish a sustainable energy system in Central Asia; and on vocational education. I would like to emphasize the outcomes of the following events: – the Civil Society Forum in Tashkent in March;
– the Second Economic Forum in Almaty and the annual meeting of the European Bank for Recon-struction and Development in Samarkand, held last month.
These events have once again demonstrated positive and qualitative changes in our dialogue with the European partners. Today, Central Asia is a center of gravity and space for new economic opportunities for leading European companies and banks.
And we here are talking about wider investment and technological partnership aimed at: – creation of modern industrial facilities, – in-troduction of “green” energy,
– development of “smart” agriculture, – formation of an extensive transport and logistics infrastructure.
My colleagues have shared with us some statis-tical data that I am not going to repeat. Nevertheless, I would like to emphasize that there is every reason to expect a doubling of these figures until 2030. I will briefly dwell on Uzbekistan’s cooperation with EU countries.
Following your historic visit to Uzbekistan, Mr. Michel, contacts at all levels have significantly en-hanced. We have held meetings with the leaders of France, Germany, Hungary and the Czech Republic. We have opened our embassies in Budapest and Stockholm. I plan to visit Italy next week.
Our trade with the European Union is growing steadily thanks to the GSP+ beneficiary status granted to Uzbekistan. While the last year the trade turnover increased by 20 percent, since the beginning of this year, we are witnessing almost 70 percent growth.
The portfolio of promising projects to create high-tech production and new jobs with leading European companies and banks exceeds 20 billion euros.
Our strategic partners include the world’s leading corporations such as Siemens, Linde Group, CLAAS, Airbus, Basf, EDF, Alstom, Total, Orano, OTP Group and many others. I would like to em-phasize that the implementation of joint projects will radically change the industrial map on the Eurasian continent.
In the humanitarian sphere, we have implemented two unique projects in partnership with the Louvre and the New Museum in Berlin.
For the first time, we have extensively presented the richest cultural and historical heritage of our entire region in these world-famous art centers.
Dear participants of the summit!
Despite the complex geopolitical situation and growing negative trends in the global economy, the Central Asian countries are demonstrating steady growth.
According to the latest estimates of EBRD’s analysts, economic growth in the region as a whole will stand at 5.2 percent this year and 5.4 percent next year.
European experts estimate that Uzbekistan will record 6.5 percent average annual growth rate. In addition, by 2030, we intend to double the GDP and incomes of the population, and join the ranks of upper-middle-income countries.
The main factor in achieving this goal will be a policy of rapid industrialization, including the at-traction of foreign investment into the manufacturing industries.
I would like to emphasize the importance of fur-ther support by our European friends and partners for our national development programs and the irre-versible reforms strategy.
Distinguished heads of delegations!
Given the proposed agenda of the summit, I would like to highlight the following areas of mutually beneficial cooperation that, in my opinion, should be given priority.
First is trade. Uzbekistan is interested in drastic expansion of trade relations with the European Un-ion, primarily in establishing sustainable trade and logistics chains and creating effective tools for sup-porting mutual supplies.
Granting GSP+ beneficiary status to Uzbekistan has become a stimulating factor for the wider in-volvement of domestic manufacturers in foreign trade activities, while improving the quality of the goods produced.
We are interested in extending these conditions for a new period. We believe that extending this preferential regime to all countries in the region will increase the industrial potential and competitiveness of our economies.
As an example, I can underscore the readiness of our exporters to export over 500 items of industrial goods worth 4 billion euros to the European market. At the same time, there are also a number of is-sues, such as: – setting up in our region a network of modern laboratories, standardization and certification centers for products in accordance with the EU requirements;
– increasing the knowledge and capacity of our exporters in terms of operating in the European market;
– carrying out activities aimed at raising aware-ness of the European companies about the trading opportunities with the countries of our region.
Unfortunately, we have not made visible pro-gress on none of these areas yet. In order to address these matters, we propose to jointly develop a Com-prehensive Support Program for the exporting and importing companies of our countries.
In addition, an early finalization of the Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between Uzbekistan and the European Union will contribute to achieving this objective.
Second, the formation of interlinked transport corridors as a key factor for sustainable economic growth. It is important to combine the efforts of our countries for the development of transport and communication connectivity between Central Asia and Europe, primarily through the formation of the so-called Middle Corridor – the Trans-Caspian Transit Corridor. Notably, this project was thoroughly analyzed at the recent meeting of the EBRD’s Board of Gover-nors in Samarkand.
