Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Earlier today, on 11 May, as part of ongoing cooperation between India and Uzbekistan in fighting the COVID 19 pandemic, Ambassador of India to Uzbekistan Mr. Santosh Jha handed over medicine supplies received from India to the officials of the Ministry of Health of Government of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

The supplies include hydroxychloroquine tablets which had been requested by the Government of Uzbekistan. India has also cleared export of large quantities of hydroxychloroquine tablets on commercial basis to Uzbekistan despite the current controls on such exports from India. 

India has also removed ban on export of Paracetamols to ensure that the supply of this vital medicine to Uzbekistan too continues unimpeded.

Earlier during their telephone conversation on 8 May, India’s External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar had provided assurances to his Uzbek counterpart Mr. Abdulaziz Kamilov that India would be happy to extend assistance as required by the Government of Uzbekistan in our common global fight against the COVID 19 pandemic.

India has also offered three online training and capacity building courses in past two months for health professionals from Uzbekistan under e-ITEC programme under which training of Uzbek medical professionals will be conducted through digital video medium. 

The development cooperation between the countries is also intensifying. In addition to the Line of Credit of upto USD 1 billion, under which a number of infrastructure and connectivity projects are under consideration for implementation, India has recently offered to implement large number of Quick Impact Projects, which can be up to USD 30 million, on grant basis to Uzbekistan. These projects are driven solely by the requirements of the Government of Uzbekistan and are aimed to meet community needs in the areas of health, education, economic empowerment of citizens especially women, Information technology, agriculture produce processing, drinking water, building of small roads and many other sectors. Ministry of Investments and Foreign Trade of Uzbekistan is the nodal Ministry for these projects.