President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev took part in the Fourth Consultative Meeting of the Heads of State of Central Asia, the press office of the President of Uzbekistan reported.
The leaders of the five states of the region discussed aspects of cooperation in ensuring regional security and responding to contemporary challenges, building up trade and economic cooperation and fostering cultural and humanitarian exchange.
Shavkat Mirziyoyev highly evaluated the results of interstate cooperation, which contributes to strengthening the ties of friendship and good neighbourliness among the Central Asian states. The President focused on the current global situation, which negatively affects regional economies due to supply chains disruptions and entails the risks of a food crisis. In this regard, the importance of maintaining multilateral ties to mitigate negative impacts comes to the forefront.
The President of Uzbekistan put forward the initiatives aimed at strengthening partnerships among the states of the region. These include the promotion of mutual trade through the unification of rules and procedures, import substitution and digital transformation of economic sectors. The Uzbek leader also proposed to hold the Forum of Central Asian Regions on a yearly basis.
With the aim to achieve food security, he proposed to develop a comprehensive scheme which would ensure that the populations are provided with food products produced in the countries of the region.
The leader of Uzbekistan proposed to speed up the transition to a “green” economy and decarbonisation and intensify economic partnerships with neighbouring Afghanistan.
Following the meeting, the parties signed the Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighbourliness and Cooperation on Development of Central Asia in the 21st century, the Joint Statement of the Cholpon-Ata Consultative Meeting, the Roadmap for Regional Cooperation for 2022-2024, the Green Agenda Regional Programme for Central Asia and the Concept of interaction among the Central Asian states within multilateral formats.
