The second Consultative meeting of the heads of state of Central Asia

The second Consultative meeting of the heads of state of Central Asia was held in Tashkent. The summit was attended by the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan – Elbasy Nursultan Nazarbayev, the President of the Kyrgyz Republic Sooronbai Jeenbekov, the President of the Republic of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon and the President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov.

Shavkat Mirziyoyev sincerely greeted his colleagues and noted that this meeting is of exceptional importance and reflects the sincere desire of our peoples to expand partnerships, strengthen friendship and good neighborliness, and jointly solve common problems.

The head of our state drew attention to the urgent issue of agreeing on a common vision of multilateral cooperation in Central Asia and put forward a number of important initiatives.

1.Deepening trade, economic and investment ties. It is important to maximize the competitive advantages of our region, which has a capacious market, significant natural raw materials and human resources.

2.The next important direction is strengthening transport interconnectedness and unlocking the transit potential of the region. It was noted that the transport system of Central Asia should, first of all, ensure well-coordinated communications within the region, as well as effectively serve increasing transit flows using the modern infrastructure being created.

3.Expanding cooperation in the energy sector, taking into account the long-term interests of our region. Uzbekistan expressed its readiness to consider possibilities for implementing joint projects to create a modern energy infrastructure in the region, paying particular attention to increasing the share of renewable energy sources.

Among the most promising areas of cooperation is the realization of the huge tourism potential of our countries. The head of our state noted the need to form a single, recognizable tourism brand of Central Asia with joint tourism products.

To this end, the President of our country proposed to hold the International Tourism Conference “Traveling Central Asia”.