During the visit, a number of meetings were held with representatives of ministries and departments of Portugal, where issues of bilateral cooperation and prospects for relations in various areas were discussed.

In particular, a meeting was held with Luis Fontes, Secretary of State Labor of Portugal, with whom issues of cooperation in the field of labor migration were discussed.

The Portuguese side was informed about the reforms carried out in our country in recent years in the field of employment of the population of the republic, the conditions created for training specialists for work abroad, ensuring their social protection and rights. The possibilities of training personnel to fill jobs in the relevant areas of the national economy of Portugal are noted.

The Portuguese side highly appreciated the measures taken by the Government of Uzbekistan to prepare labor migrants based on the requests of foreign countries, noted the high interest of Portugal in the labor force due to the lack of qualified labor resources.

In this regard, in order to determine the needs of the Portuguese labor market, it is proposed to establish cooperation between the Agency for External Labor Migration and the Institute for Employment and Vocational Training of Portugal.

The textile industry was identified as another area of cooperation. Portugal is a garment factory for many brands. At the same time, some companies cannot cope with the volume of orders, and therefore, they need additional production capacities. Uzbekistan, with its huge potential of the textile industry, could take part of the incoming orders on the basis of “tolling”.

Issues of cooperation in the field of labor migration, as well as ensuring public safety, were also discussed at the talks with the Deputy Secretary General of the Ministry of the Interior of Portugal, Ricardo Carillo.

It was noted that the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Portugal recently received a positive response from the Immigration and Border Service of Portugal to a request from the Uzbek side regarding the conclusion of a bilateral agreement on the recruitment of labor migrants from Uzbekistan. The Portuguese side expressed readiness to consider the possibility of signing an agreement in this area with the relevant ministry of Uzbekistan.

In the course of the meeting, promising areas of Uzbek-Portuguese cooperation were also discussed.