DUSHANBE, February 18, Asia-Plus — President Emomali Rahmon is receiving visiting Uzbek government delegation today, deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister, Ms. Larisa Kislyakova, told journalists today ahead the beginning of a meeting of the Tajik-Uzbek intergovernmental commission for trade and economic cooperation.
According to her, the Tajik side is ready to boost trade and economic cooperation with the neighboring country. “Annual trade between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan accounts to 4 to 7 percent of Tajikistan’s gross domestic product (GDP),” the deputy minister said, noting that a draft protocol on cooperation between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in trade and water-and-energy spheres had already been prepared.
As it had been reported earlier, Uzbekistan’s First Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Azimov, heading Uzbek government delegation, arrived in Dushanbe on February 17 to attend the second session of the Tajik-Uzbek economic commission.
The session co-chaired by Tajik Deputy Prime Minister Murodali Alimardon and Uzbek First Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Azimov is currently being held in the Government Dacha in Dushanbe. The commission is supposed to consider some 13 issues, including cooperation in use of water and energy resources and transportation. Turkmen electricity deliveries to Tajikistan via Uzbek power systems are expected to be among major topics of the meeting. According to some sources, along with issues related to trade and economic cooperation between the two countries, the commission is also expected to consider problems of delineation of common border between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
We will recall that the first meeting of the Tajik-Uzbek commission for trade and economic cooperation was held in Dushanbe in August 2002. Tajik and Uzbek prime ministers who co-chaired the commissions signed the minutes of the meeting. An agreement between the governments of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan on cooperation in the field of television broadcasting and a protocol agreement between the two countries” governments on the transit of rail freight and the transit of special freight were signed by them. Tajik and Uzbek border and customs services signed an agreement on the technical servicing of the state credit provided by the Uzbek government to the Tajik government and a protocol on the procedure for the functioning of double border checkpoints.
