The event, organized by the Institute for Strategic and Interregional Studies under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan (ISMI) and the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan (KISI), was attended by representatives of expert-analytical and scientific-academic circles of the two countries.
It should be noted that the Memorandum on the establishment of the Uzbek-Kazakh Expert Council was signed on August 8 as part of the state visit of President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev to the Republic of Kazakhstan. The signing ceremony of the memorandum took place in the presence of the two heads of state.
Earlier, on August 2, the first meeting of the Expert Council was held in Astana, following which the heads of ISMI and KISI initialed the Memorandum.
The Council is designed to give a regular and substantive character to the expert dialogue between the countries by involving relevant experts and specialists to discuss new ideas, develop proposals for further enhancing comprehensive cooperation between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
The current second meeting of the expert council was devoted to the results of the recent state visit of the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev to Kazakhstan.
Speaking with a welcoming speech, ISMI Director Eldor Aripov noted that the summit of the leaders of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan has become a landmark in many ways. The first meeting of the Supreme Interstate Council was held. According to the expert, "this is the first example of such close cooperation between the two Central Asian countries, which is an indicator of a special level of trust."
At the same time, the Director of ISMI focused on a number of important agreements reached during the visit. Among them is the adopted Program of Strategic Partnership and Alliance for 2024-2034, which covered almost all issues of bilateral cooperation.
Eldor Aripov highlighted the positive dynamics of the development of trade and economic cooperation between the two countries. According to him, in the last 7 years alone, the trade turnover between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan has grown more than 2 times, amounting to about 4.5 billion dollars. In this context, it was stressed that the goal set by the heads of state to bring the volume of trade turnover to $ 10 billion in the coming years is quite an achievable bar.
According to the expert, an important help in this regard was the solid portfolio of new agreements and contracts adopted following the visit, which exceeded $ 7 billion. The Presidents launched major joint investment projects in the fields of energy, transport and logistics, metallurgy, textile, agricultural and construction sectors, as well as between regions.
At the end of the meeting, the parties expressed their readiness to continue working together to find new directions and drivers for the development of Uzbek-Kazakh cooperation. To this end, an agreement was reached to develop a Work Plan for the Expert Council for 2024-2025.
