Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is expected to take the current warm and cordial Malaysia-Uzbekistan bilateral ties to a new level when he arrives here Sunday for a four-day official visit.
The two countries are expected to enhance their close relationship, especially in the areas of economic and human capital development.
Abdullah and Uzbek President Islam Karimov, are expected to ink memorandum of understanding in promoting cooperation in science and technology as well as higher education, according to Wisma Putra.
Malaysian Ambassador to Uzbekistan Abdul Aziz Harun said bilateral trade between the two countries was quite insignificant at the moment, with total trade at US$36.4 million for Jan-Sept this year compared to a total of US$33.3 million for the whole of 2007 and US$25.5 million in 2006, reported Uzreport.
Malaysia”s main exports include vegetable oil, palm oil, electrical and electronics equipment, furniture, rubber products and printed materials while Uzbekistan”s main exports are cotton and air services.
Abdul Harun said the main reason for the lack of bilateral trade could be attributed to Uzbekistan”s landlocked location which incurred higher transportation cost for Malaysian products.
Other problems, he said, included the lack of a reliable banking system in this country that could support trading operations, minimum credit facilities and Uzbekistan Central Bank”s tight control on the outflow of hard currency to support the import and export sector.
Currently, Malaysia”s investment in Uzbekistan is small in terms of capital and size of projects, with the focus only on oil and gas exploration by Petronas, the national petroleum company, tourism and banking.
