The head of Belarus thanked Bakhtiyor Saidov for the hospitality that was provided by the Uzbek side during his recent official visit to Tashkent.

“We then set ambitious plans for ourselves – to achieve a trade turnover of $1 billion. I think that we don’t have time to retreat anywhere, and we don’t need to. We are ready to play our role, I hope that Uzbekistan will also make every effort,” Alexander Lukashenko said (quoted from his press service).

He also expressed gratitude to Uzbekistan for supporting Belarus on its path to membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

“I ask you to pay special attention to the creation of joint ventures that we agreed on. We talked then about BelAZ and so on. Let’s work substantively in this direction. We are interested in this. We have something to offer Uzbekistan... I think that, being here in Belarus, if you want to see some of our enterprises, please, we will arrange a visit to any enterprise at any time so that you can make sure that their products are acceptable for use in Uzbekistan,” the president suggested.

Alexander Lukashenko emphasized that Belarus “has always been friendly and brotherly towards Uzbekistan and the people of this country”.

“You can rest assured that it will always be like this. I often say that we are very similar in our hard work, patriotism and attitude towards our state. Therefore, let’s fulfill the agreements that we reached then in Tashkent,” he concluded.

Bakhtiyor Saidov conveyed greetings from President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to Alexander Lukashenko: “He specifically called my attention and said, “Give my best wishes to my friend”. Naturally, the visit you made to Uzbekistan is a historical visit,” the minister said.

Uzbekistan is ready to raise relations with Belarus to a qualitatively new level in all areas, he assured.

In early February, the presidents of Uzbekistan and Belarus agreed to increase trade turnover to over $1 billion, effectively use trade corridors to South Asia and increase cooperation in the agricultural sector, pharmaceuticals, food and light industry. At the forum of regions, documents worth more than $1 billion were also signed.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev announced the need to create a joint venture with BelAZ in Uzbekistan with the localization of the production of mining dump trucks for the construction of copper processing plants.