Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to double bilateral trade by 2015
2012-09-06 17:16:46
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan will be able to bring the bilateral trade to US $ 1 billion in the following two years. This was stated by Minister of Foreign Economic Relations, Investment and Trade (MFERIT) of Uzbekistan Elyor Ganiev during the eighth session of the Uzbek-Turkmen Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation in Tashkent.
“We believe that there are great prospects for the major expansion of bilateral trade through increasing the range and volume of traded products. We are sure that even the modest trade turnover between our countries should amount to no less than US $ 1 billion, and there are all conditions for this,” said Ganiev, who co-chairs the commission from the Uzbek side, reported Turkmenistan state news agency.
According to the head MFERIT of Uzbekistan, in 2011, bilateral trade grew by 68.7 percent to US $ 454.3 million. "We hope that we will be able to maintain similar growth rates in 2012 and beyond,” he said.
According to the Uzbek side, Uzbekistan can provide favorable conditions for the sale of products of the famous world brands produced in the country. Among them are General Motors, MAN, CLAAS, LG, Samsung, Bosch and others. At the same time, given the geographical proximity of the neighboring countries, there will be no significant transport and insurance costs.
"We are ready to import the same volume of goods from Turkmenistan. These are the petrochemical products, such as polypropylene, polyethylene, oil and gas as well as products of other industries. We will benefit greatly if we purchase these products in Turkmenistan because of lower transportation and other costs,” Ganiev said.
In turn, the co-chairman of the commission from the Turkmen side, Minister of Trade and Foreign Economic Relations Bayar Abaev noted that the sides would take a number of measures to increase the bilateral trade.
“Today, in Turkmenistan’s exports to Uzbekistan the largest share belongs to products of the fuel and energy sector. As regards imports from Uzbekistan, the most popular goods are food products and cars. The arrangements that we discuss today aim at diversifying the traditional partnership and finding new promising areas and optimal forms of cooperation,” Abayev said.