US ready to assist Uzbekistan in WTO accession

“For many years Kyrgyzstan was the sole member of the World Trade Organization in the region. Now Russia and Tajikistan are members and Kazakhstan and Afghanistan are making solid progress on their accession bids,” he said.

He said: “Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have recently expressed interest in joining the WTO. We strongly support these aspirations, because we all benefit from open and inclusive trade regimes in the region. International businesses see WTO accession as a sign that countries, and in this case a whole region, are open for investment”.

“We appreciate Uzbekistan’s desire to protect strategic industries in order to ensure their future competitiveness,” Robert Blake said.

“Such matters can be addressed in a thoughtful and sophisticated way during the Working Party negotiations, which are an integral part of the accession process. The United States would be pleased to offer technical assistance to deal with this and other accession-related issues,” he noted.

Uzbekistan applied to the WTO membership in December 1004. Currently, three sessions of working group on accession of Uzbekistan to WTO were held. The sides are working on holding the fourth session of the group.