Members of the UzLiDeP faction at the Legislative Chamber of Oliy Majlis of Uzbekistan shared their opinion on the event.

Sobir Jabbarov, a member of UzLiDeP faction at Legislative Chamber, said that a declaration on development of tourism along Great Silk Road was adopted in Samarkand. He noted that Uzbek cities such as Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva and Shahrisabz were ancient cities as Rome and Babylon.

Great Silk Road passed through these cities, where culture, education, medicine, literature and architecture developed with fast pace. Several scientific and handicraft schools developed in these cities.

He said that it is vital to ensure peace and tolerance in the country to develop tourism as example of Syria and Iraq shows.

Organization of the 99th session of the UNWTO Executive Council in Uzbekistan demonstrates peace and calm in the country, he said. Uzbekistan will focus its efforts to develop tourism, as well as ensure secure and stable development of the country.

Abdurashid Jurabaev, a member of UzLiDeP faction at Legislative Chamber, underlined that Samarkand was at the crossroad of culture and pearl of global civilization.

He said that Uzbekistan has all necessary tourism potential – cities with rich history, great architectural monuments, unique oriental look and nature.

He said that Uzbekistan has over 7,000 historic monuments. Over US$580 million of investments were directed to development of tourism sector in 2014, which rose by 19% year-on-year.

He noted that number of tourists, visiting Uzbekistan, rose by 43% in last two years and over 1 million foreign tourists visited Uzbekistan in the first half of 2014. The volume of exported tourism services was over US$615 million in 2013. UzLiDeP believes that Uzbekistan should become one of the centers of world tourism.

Guljan Halmuratova, a member of UzLiDeP faction at Legislative Chamber, said the party and its voters widely are discussing new pre-election programme. In this context, UzLiDeP believes that tourism is one of the priority spheres of developing economy and help to improve its competitiveness. Development of tourism will remain as one of the priorities of the party. Currently, over 200,000 people work in tourism industry in Uzbekistan and its share in GDP exceeds 2%. She said that further development of tourism and increasing its share in GDP will help to solve several social issues I the country.

She said that UzLiDeP will also focus on developing private tourism sector and tourism infrastructure, transport and hotel services. She said that the party believes that tourism sector should provide preferences and stimulus to further develop tourism sector in the country.

She said that Uzbekistan should also work on improving tourism image of Uzbekistan and its attractiveness, including via Internet.