Ministry of Foreign Trade of Uzbekistan hosts meeting with Ambassador of Israel

At the beginning of the meeting, the Minister of Foreign Trade Jamshid Khodjaev informed about the current trade and economic relations between two countries. In particular, last year, the trade turnover between Uzbekistan and Israel made up US$41 million, including export of Uzbekistan made up US$15.1 million and import - US$29.0 million.

Today, 38 enterprises with Israeli capital are already operating in Uzbekistan, including 8 enterprises with 100% Israeli capital. Nevertheless, it was noted that there is a huge potential for a multiple increase of turnover and an expansion of the range of cooperation in many areas.

It was stressed that for the successful development of trade and economic relations between Uzbekistan and Israel, there is a necessary legal framework. The governments of two countries signed the Agreement on Promotion and Mutual Protection of Investments, as well as the Agreement on Trade and Economic Cooperation.

With a view to jointly working out concrete proposals and measures to further expand trade and economic cooperation, the Ministry proposed to organize the first meeting of the Uzbek-Israeli Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation in 2018, with organization of a business forum.

In turn, the Israeli Ambassador Edward Shapira said that trade and economic cooperation is a key direction in relations between two countries.

Further, he provided detailed information on opportunities and prospects for mutual cooperation. “Israel is technology and innovation. The development of cooperation between countries will expand access to the highest technologies, opportunities and technological solutions in such areas as medicine, information technologies, cyber security and agriculture,” the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the State of Israel in Uzbekistan said.

Eduard Shapira also supported the initiative to hold a meeting of the intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation and stressed that this would be a big step forward.

At the same time, the ambassador invited the Uzbek side to take part in the largest exhibitions in Israel like the Agritech agro-technologies exhibition, the WATEC exhibition and conference on water technologies and environmental control, and the conference on internal security and cyber technologies HLS & Cyber.

The parties expressed readiness for mutually beneficial cooperation and agreed on development of the Roadmap for development of trade and economic relations between Uzbekistan and Israel.