The First Deputy Foreign Minister of Uzbekistan Ilhom Nematov held a video conference on Dec. 27 at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which summed up the activities of the Ministry and diplomatic missions abroad in fulfilling the guidelines of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev on attracting foreign investments into the economy of the country, promoting and expanding the export volumes, increasing the tourist flow to Uzbekistan. The priority activity areas for 2019 were also identified, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan reports, UzA said citing MFA’s press service.
The meeting was attended by heads of diplomatic missions of Uzbekistan abroad via video conferencing.
At the meeting, activity of the MFA headquarters and diplomatic missions abroad was critically reviewed.
It was noted that despite the existing shortcomings associated with interministerial cooperation, the lack of qualitative project and commercial proposals, as well as the presence of a number of technical barriers, most of the diplomatic missions were able to demonstrate positive indicators in these three foreign economic activities.
It was emphasized that the Head of the state pays great attention to the effectiveness of foreign economic work of representations overseas. For example, during recent visits to Karakalpakstan, Khorezm and Kashkadarya regions the President of Uzbekistan personally heard reports of Uzbekistan’s ambassadors to China, Japan, Iran, the Republic of Korea, Kuwait, Malaysia, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan and the United Kingdom. He gave specific instructions to strengthen the work on attracting foreign investments and financial-technical assistance to the districts of these provinces.
In order to increase exports of Uzbek products, the diplomatic missions abroad are conducting a consistent work, including:
- constant activity is carried out on analyzing the market of the host country, studying the existing tariff and non-tariff barriers;
- close cooperation with quarantine authorities is established on removing quarantine restrictions of foreign countries on the import of fruits and vegetables from Uzbekistan;
- a comprehensive assistance is rendered to Uzbek exporters in promoting their goods in foreign markets, their participation in exhibitions and fairs abroad, signing firm-order export contracts;
- an extensive outreach activity is being conducted on promoting domestic goods abroad under the brand “Made in Uzbekistan”;
- participation of 165 representatives from 24 foreign countries in the First International Export Fair “Made in Uzbekistan” on 27-30 November 2018 in Tashkent was ensured;
- targeted activity on issues of promoting export from regions of Uzbekistan, affiliated to diplomatic missions, is being conducted.
In 2018 the Foreign Ministry and diplomatic missions carried out consistent work aimed at increasing the number of inbound tourists.
If in 2017 the export of tourist services amounted to $546,9 mln., in 10 months of 2018 it rose to $875.6 mln. In just 11 months of this year, 4,9 mln. foreigners visited Uzbekistan, which is 94% more than in the same period of 2017 (2,5 mln.).
In 2018, in order to increase the tourists flow, a visa-free procedure was introduced for citizens of 9 countries, including France, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Tajikistan and Turkey. Today, the total number of visa-free countries to visit Uzbekistan is 18.
Over the last year, representations overseas held over 250 presentations of the tourism potential of Uzbekistan. Diplomatic missions attended more than 50 tourism fairs held abroad. Publications in foreign print and electronic mass media, as well as demonstration of 1.2 thousand materials about the tourism potential of Uzbekistan on foreign TV-channels was arranged.
Considerable work was carried out in order to promote “ziyorat” (pilgrimage) tourism.
In 2018, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs together with diplomatic missions abroad had successfully held 23 meetings of the Intergovernmental Commissions (IGC) and subcommittees.
Since the beginning of 2018 the IGC meetings were held with Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, China, EU, USA, Japan, Vietnam, India, France, Germany and Iran, which discussed practical issues of developing cooperation in trade, economy and investments.
At the conference, held at the MFA, reports of a number of ambassadors of Uzbekistan abroad were also heard. It was noted that insufficient targeted work has been carried out by the MFA headquarters and its diplomatic missions on attracting foreign investment, promoting exports and increasing inbound tourism in the regions of Uzbekistan, affiliated to the diplomatic missions, in order to ensure their accelerated socio-economic development, untimely execution of signed documents, poor control over the implementation of the approved roadmaps, as well as the lack of systemic coordination between the economic agencies of Uzbekistan and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Heads of diplomatic missions were given specific tasks on implementation of the instructions of the Head of the state for intensifying the foreign economic activity of the Foreign Ministry and missions abroad in 2019.
