Tashkent hosted the 7th meeting of Uzbekistan – Hungary Intergovernmental Commission for Economic Cooperation under the chairmanship of Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Investments and Foreign Trade of Uzbekistan Sardor Umurzakov and the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary Péter Szijjártó.

According to Uzbekistan MIFT, the meeting was attended by heads of key ministries, agencies, industry associations, commercial banks, educational institutions, and diplomatic missions of the two countries.

The participants considered issues of further developing cooperation in the investment, industrial, trade and economic, banking and financial, cultural and humanitarian spheres.

The heads of the delegations of Uzbekistan and Hungary noted the regular and systemic nature of bilateral interdepartmental contacts at the level of leaders and experts, as well as the invariable focus of the two states on the progressive expansion of mutually beneficial cooperation in areas of common interest.

It was announced that over the past 4 years, the trade turnover between Uzbekistan and Hungary has increased 3 times and showed growth even in 2020-2021, despite the negative consequences of the pandemic. Significant potential for diversifying markets and trade flows, as well as increasing mutual supplies of products from the chemical, food, mechanical engineering, pharmaceutical and textile industries were noted.

The main attention was paid to the joint actions to develop industrial cooperation between entrepreneurs of Uzbekistan and Hungary.

The parties spoke in favor of intensifying joint work to bring together the business communities of the two countries and agreed to hold a meeting of Uzbekistan – Hungary Business Council and a Business Forum this year.

An agreement was also reached on the development and approval of a joint Industrial Cooperation Program for 2022-2023 with the inclusion of promising projects in priority sectors.

The main attention was paid to the development of interregional cooperation. The participants of the meeting discussed specific steps to intensify practical cooperation at the regional level within the framework of the Interregional Cooperation Agreement signed last year.

Several agreements were also reached in the cultural, humanitarian, and tourism spheres. The parties emphasized the signing of the Cooperation Agreement in tourism, designed to create favorable conditions for increasing mutual tourist flows.

UzA