Negotiations were held between the Deputy PM Jamshid Khodjaev and Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif as part of the visit of the Uzbekistan government delegation to Pakistan on Tuesday.
The parties discussed process of implementing the agreements reached during the bilateral meeting of the heads of the two states within the framework of the SCO summit in Samarkand and the ways to advance cooperation in trade, economic, investment, industrial, scientific and technical fields.
They focused on the consistent growth in the volume of the two-way trade, which has increased 5 times since 2016 and emphasized the huge potential to boost trade and economic relations, which is largely facilitated by the agreement on transit trade signed in March this year.
The sides noted the prospects for stepping up the interaction of responsible ministries and departments on completing the coordination and signing of an agreement on preferential trade, a document that will allow bringing the trade turnover between Uzbekistan and Pakistan to $500 million in the near future and up to $1 billion within a few years.
They discussed, as one of the priority areas for the development of relations, the prospects for intensifying joint efforts to implement large-scale regional transport and logistics projects and considered the current state of work on technical and economic aspects, field research, financial, technical and organizational issues of promoting initiatives together with other countries of the region.
The parties reiterated the reciprocal commitment to further develop multifaceted relations and maintain the dynamics of partnership through the intensification of direct contacts between the ministries, departments and business circles of the two countries, for which an agreement was reached to hold a regular meeting of the Uzbek-Pakistani intergovernmental commission in Tashkent in early 2023.