Tashkent hosted the meeting of the Uzbek-Russian intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation on Sunday, the Ministry of Investments and Foreign Trade said.

The meeting was co-chaired by Deputy Prime Minister - Head of the MIFT of Uzbekistan Jamshid Khodjaev and Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Industry and Trade of Russia Denis Manturov.

The sides reportedly considered trade and economic, investment, industrial, transport and logistics, cultural and humanitarian cooperation between the two countries and expressed mutual interest in developing new initiatives and expediting the implementation of existing joint projects in the fields of petrochemistry, mining metallurgy, energy, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, construction materials, light industry, as well as the processing of fruits and vegetables.

The Minister of Investments and Foreign Trade, Jamshid Khodjaev, said that the joint project office of the Uzbek MIFT and the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade were developing a new portfolio of more than 20 projects totaling worth nearly $4 billion. “In addition to this, we are working on the implementation of other breakthrough projects that will be implemented for the first time in the history of our ties,” he said.

“Partnership between our countries is on the rise, and this positive trend is reflected by the statistics of Russian-Uzbek trade ties, it grew by 37%. We expect to reach about $8.5 billion by the end of the year,” said Denis Manturov, Russian Minister of Industry and Trade, quoted by the press service of the Russian government.

In addition, according to Denis Manturov, the investments of over 2,000 Russian companies in Uzbekistan are also growing, the volume of capital investments has exceeded $10 billion in the oil and gas and energy sectors, telecommunications, the agro-industrial complex and a number of industries.

Denis Manturov also stressed that the cooperation between the two countries could become even more capacious in industrial cooperation. According to him, this year Russian auto enterprises began to purchase some auto components from Uzavtosanoat. “We are also interested in the fact that Uzbek manufacturers of auto components come to our market - now the situation is favorable for this,” said Denis Manturov.

In turn, according to Manturov, Russia is ready to cooperate in the design and provision of integrated engineering services for large industrial projects, such as the construction of the Tashkent Metallurgical Plant, implemented by the Russian Metprom group.

Another area of ​​cooperation was the joint development of industrial infrastructure in Uzbekistan, Denis Manturov continued.

“The first such platform was the Chirchik industrial park inaugurated in March this year in the Tashkent province. Here we are actually talking about a kind of export of Russian management competencies, since Russian specialists played an active role in the creation, management and development of the technopark. Now there are already 12 enterprises of the chemical complex of our countries among the residents, and some have already set their sights on supplying their products to different regions of the Eurasian continent. I think we need to fully support and develop this format of cooperation,” he said.

He also spoke about joint projects in geology and subsoil use. “Our company Rosgeo has carried out large-scale geological exploration work in the Aral Sea and adjacent territories. The results obtained indicate the possibility of discovering large, mainly gas, fields in the region,” said Denis Manturov.

He also recalled the Agroexpress project. “Since the end of last year, more than 200,000 tons of Russian food exports have already been delivered through this line. In the opposite direction, it works on a smaller scale so far, but we expect to increase the carrying capacity through this channel by at least 5 times in the next few years,” he assured.