PESHAWAR, April 19: Uzbek Ambassador to Pakistan Oybek Usmanve has underlined the need for strengthening economic, social and cultural ties between Pakistan and Uzbekistan and said that President Islam Karimov will sign seven memoranda of understanding during his upcoming visit to Pakistan.
Addressing as chief guest at a conference on ‘Pak-Uzbek relations’ at Peshawar University’s area study centre for China, Russia and Central Asia on Wednesday, Mr Usmanov hoped that direct flights between Pakistan and Uzbekistan would start soon.
He recalled that President General Pervez Musharraf during his visit to Tashkent in 2005 had signed three agreements as well as a joint declaration aimed at expanding ties, cultural exchanges for 2005-09 and cooperation against terrorism.
The envoy handed over a draft of MoU to the director, area study centre, Dr Azmat Hayat. Under the MoU, Pakistani students, scholars and academicians will exchange information, research and educational know-how available in Tashkent’s political study centre.
He said Uzbekistan had made tremendous progress in the economic sector during the past three years, adding that their GDP growth had increased to 7.5 per cent.
He said the agricultural sector had achieved growth at a rate of 6.5 per cent in the past four years and the foreign trade had reached $1.3 billion from $800 million in 2005.
Sherzad Fayziev, second secretary in the Uzbekistan Embassy at Islamabad, read his paper titled ‘Pakistan-Uzbekistan relations’.
The Uzbek government sent two flights with more than 40 tons of food, tents, medicines and equipment to Pakistan after the Oct 8 earthquake.
In his paper on ‘Economic Achievement of Uzbekistan’, Shabir Ahmed Khan said that since 1996 a positive growth started in Uzbek GDP and in the year 2000 Uzbekistan was the only Central Asian state to retain that growth level.
He said the Pakistan-Uzbekistan trade had reached around $80 million in 1998 that dropped to $8 million in 2000 and currently it was around $10 million.
He stressed that direct flights between the two countries should be resumed at the earliest and the Uzbek government should review its visa policy providing more opportunities for people-to-people contact to enhance economic and cultural ties between the two countries.