ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Uzbekistan on Tuesday signed nine memorandums of understanding (MoUs) to increase cooperation in various fields and prepare an action plan to boost the trade volume to $1 billion.

Commerce Minister Naveed Qamar and Uzbekistan Deputy Prime Minister and Minist­er of Investment and Foreign Trade Khodjave Jamshid Abdukhakimovich signed the MoUs on behalf of their respective governments.

The two sides agreed to implement Pak-Uzbekistan Preferential Trade Agree­ment (PTA) from February 2023, as the Uzbekistan side will complete internal formalities in January and the Pakistan side has already completed the same. Talks on PTA were initiated by the PTI government.

Both sides agreed to start awareness sessions for business communities of both countries. It was also agreed to implement the agreement between Uzbekistan and Pakistan on Transit Trade. The notification of rules is awaited from the Uzbekistan side in February 2023.

To overcome the problems being faced by the Pakistani and Uzbek transporters, both sides agreed to take up all the issues with Afghanistan, in a joint visit to Kabul tentatively to be undertaken in the last week of January, after finalising a joint agenda to be presented to Afghan side.

Both sides agreed to formulate a joint strategy for transit trade through Afghanistan.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2022