Uzbek leader receives Chinese Premier

Warmly greeting the guest, Uzbek President noted that the Premier’s first visit to Uzbekistan in his current post is considered in our country as a reasonable extension of the successful state visit by the President of the PRC Xi Jinping that took place in September and that the outcomes of which facilitated the reinforcement and advancement of interstate cooperation, afforded a new potent impetus to the steadfast consolidation of the strategic partnership between our two nations.

As it was stressed earlier today at the meeting, the bilateral interaction has been consistently moving forward across practically all areas, namely, in the political, trade-economic, investment, cultural-humanitarian and other spheres.

The business forum that has taken place in Tashkent among the entrepreneurs of our two countries confirmed that the two sides are persistently interested in boosting the mutually beneficial ties and creating new joint production capacities, primarily in the area of high technologies.

The bilateral trade turnover exceeded US$3.5 billion in the nine months of the current year, which is higher than that of the entire 2012. Over 488 joint ventures with Chinese capital have been operating productively in Uzbekistan. A considerable number of projects are being executed since 2002 with the involvement of Chinese investments for the sum total of US$6.75 billion.

In 2012, China started to receive Uzbek natural gas. Currently, construction of the third track of the Uzbekistan-China gas pipeline and the projecting of the fourth one are underway. The commissioning of these lines is expected to allow for the enhancement of export and transit of natural gas from Central Asia to the PRC.

During the conversation, the two sides exchanged views also on other issues in the Uzbek-Chinese cooperation agenda.

Li Keqiang expressed profound gratitude to the head of our state for a warm reception and the opportunity to thoroughly discuss the current trends in the bilateral interaction as well as pressing issues in regional and international affairs of shared interest.