President Shavkat Mirziyoyev at a government meeting on Monday announced the need to simplify the tourist registration system at police departments, president’s spokesman Sherzod Asadov said.

“While, even the most advanced countries are also fighting for every tourist, we must review all unnecessary restrictions,” the president said.

He instructed the ministers of tourism and cultural heritage, as well as the ministers of internal affairs, to work out the replacement of the procedure for obtaining temporary registration permit at police departments in a way of an online notification.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev noted that if the Ministry of Tourism and local authorities use new opportunities, the country can reach at least 7 million foreign and 12 million domestic tourists per year. At the same time, there is potential for tourism exports to reach at least $2 billion next year, he said.

At the same meeting, the president said that from the beginning of the year to September, the number of foreign tourists reached 3.1 million, and exports to the industry topped 926 million US dollars. The number of domestic tourists increased by 3.5 times compared to the previous year to 7.5 million.

“If we want to be competitive in the field of tourism, first of all we must focus on the quality of service in hotels,” the head of state said.

He instructed to simplify the requirements for the organization of hotels based on international standards. Now, for example, there are 97 requirements for organizing a hotel, and 138 requirements for obtaining "stars".

The President also set the task of canceling the requirement to obtain a license for travel agents, replacing it with a notification procedure.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev noted that a resolution on the introduction of duty free and tax free systems was signed three years ago, but they are still not developing. He sternly warned the head of the Ministry of Tourism, Aziz Abdukhakimov, the Minister of Finance, Timur Ishmetov, and the chairman of the State Tax Committee, Sherzod Kudbiev, that the systems be fully operational from January 1, 2023.

Another instruction of the President was the introduction of the service of fast passage of border and customs points and the launch of tourist information centers.