Medvedev hopes Russian-Uzbek commission at PM level will help implement major investment projects
URGENCH, Uzbekistan. May 30 (Interfax) - Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev expects that the joint commission led by the heads of government of Russia and Uzbekistan will help implement major investment projects.
"Uzbekistan is a key partner for us in Central Asia. We expect that this new tool, namely the commission at the level of prime ministers, will become an additional incentive, an additional tool for the implementation of big tasks, major investment projects and humanitarian projects that intensified in the past few years and are carried out in our countries," Medvedev said at a meeting with his Uzbek colleague Abdulla Aripov.
He said that bilateral trade turnover was boosted in all directions in the past few years. According to Russian statistics, last year it grew by 20%.
Medvedev said he was speaking of considerable deliveries from Russia to Uzbekistan and visa versa.
"Including such an important direction as agricultural cooperation. Thanks to this cooperation alone last year deliveries exceeded $500 million," he said.
He said that Russia and Uzbekistan use "the green corridor" model of deliveries.
Medvedev said that he is glad to visit Urgench as well as the Uzbek capital. "It helps understand each other better because such events held directly in a region guarantee that the aims put forward by the presidents of the two countries to which the governments are working will be reached," he said.
He added that all these aims are reached in the regions.
In turn, Aripov said that during the past two years relations between Russia and Uzbekistan have been rapidly developing thanks to successful mutual visits of presidents.
"Relations of trust between our heads of state opened up a new page in the relationship of Russia and Uzbekistan, of course," he said.