Tashkent hosts the 10th Regional Meeting of National Trade Facilitation Committees in Central Asia.

At the event, organized within the framework of the GIZ Trade Facilitation in Central Asia project, the results of research conducted over 20 years on trade facilitation in the region were discussed.

The forum was attended by representatives of National Committees, as well as experts from the public and private sectors from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, representatives of the German Embassy in Uzbekistan, the diplomatic corps and heads of international organizations.

At the panel sessions of the forum, views were exchanged on the prospects of a project to facilitate trade procedures in the region by providing advisory support. The need to speed up the cargo control procedure and increase efficiency and transparency in the transit transportation and border control process was noted.

At the meeting, it was noted that over the past 20 years, thanks to close partnerships with national government bodies, the share of Central Asian countries in 2022 amounted to almost 15 percent of foreign trade turnover.

The results of the analysis of digital mapping solutions to facilitate trade in Central Asia, data protection, and personal privacy were also discussed at the meeting. The forum’s main event was a session on using artificial intelligence to access data on cross-border trade.

Bekhruz Khudoyberdiyev, UzA