Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev and President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev continued negotiations with the participation of official delegations of the two countries.

The heads of states discussed in detail the prospects for further strengthening the Uzbek-Kazakh strategic partnership and multifaceted cooperation. Priority attention was paid to the expansion of trade and economic cooperation, including an increase in mutual trade, the implementation of joint cooperation projects, interaction in the field of transit and logistics, energy, water and agriculture. Measures to build up interregional and cultural and humanitarian exchanges were considered.

Also, an exchange of views took place on topical issues of the global and regional agenda, interaction between international structures.

The President of our country stressed that Uzbekistan highly appreciates the especially warm fraternal relations of our peoples.

- Today we are making a historic decision and bringing our cooperation to the level of allied relations. We are determined to further strengthen the centuries-old friendship, good-neighborliness, mutual trust and full-scale partnership. We will use all the opportunities and resources for this. Our goal is to enrich the multifaceted cooperation of the two fraternal countries with concrete content, said Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

The leaders of the two countries, in order to further strengthen the strategic partnership, expressed their intention to establish the Supreme Interstate Council, the Council of Interparliamentary Cooperation and the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Republic of Uzbekistan.

During the talks, new “points of growth”, main priorities and target tasks of bilateral cooperation were identified.

There is a great potential for a significant expansion of the range and volumes of mutual deliveries of products in demand by replacing imports from third countries. This is confirmed by the dynamic growth in the volume of mutual trade this year, which is expected to reach a record high of US$4 billion.

It was noted that all the possibilities exist to bring this indicator to ten billion dollars in the next five years. To this end, the parties agreed to adopt the Roadmap, develop wholesale distribution centers and joint agricultural clusters.

The parties stressed the importance of developing mutually beneficial partnership through the creation of new joint ventures in various sectors of the economy. Priority areas identified such areas as attracting investment, industrial cooperation, agro-industrial complex, transport and logistics, energy, pharmaceuticals, construction industry.

Agreements were reached on the implementation of specific projects of industrial cooperation. There are already successful examples of such interaction in mechanical engineering, energy, electrical, chemical, textile and other industries. New large projects are on the way in construction, agriculture, pharmaceuticals and other priority areas.

In particular, following the results of the business events held the day before, a package of promising investment projects worth over two billion dollars has been prepared.

To give additional impetus to these efforts, a joint International Center for Industrial Cooperation will be established.

Interregional contacts are becoming the driver of increased interaction. Thus, following the results of the recent Forum of Regions, a number of agreements and trade contracts were signed.

The heads of the border regions of the two countries were instructed to interact even more closely in matters of mutual deliveries of products and the development of new cooperation projects.

The transport sector is marked as an important area. The volume of road and rail freight traffic is growing. Air traffic between the countries has been fully restored, new directions have been opened.

The President of Uzbekistan emphasized the importance of creating new routes that provide access to the markets of each other and third countries. The leaders agreed to speed up projects for the construction of the Uchkuduk-Kyzylorda railway and highway, as well as the Turkestan-Shymkent-Tashkent high-speed railway.

The issues of rational use of water resources were also touched upon. To this end, we agreed to develop sustainable long-term mechanisms for mutually beneficial cooperation and continue the work of the Joint Working Group to develop proposals in all areas of water relations between the two countries. The necessity of taking joint practical measures for the accelerated introduction of the latest water-saving technologies, the implementation of joint activities on forest planting in the Aral Sea region was noted.

The parties expressed their intention to closely cooperate in the field of foreign policy, promoting mutual interests and ideas of regional rapprochement in order to ensure peace and stability in Central Asia. The Presidents agreed to purposefully work to improve the format of the Consultative Meetings of the Heads of States of Central Asia in order to maximize the use of their potential with strict respect for the interests of all participating states.

The meeting also discussed issues of building up humanitarian exchanges, cooperation in education, science, healthcare, culture and art, tourism and sports.

The President of Kazakhstan noted that a monument to Alisher Navoi will be erected in Nur-Sultan, as a symbol of the spiritual community and centuries-old friendship of our peoples.