Russia and Uzbekistan: developing ties in all directions
President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev and President of Russia Vladimir Putin
© Mikhail Klimentiev / Press Service of the President of the Russian Federation / TASS
Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev visited Moscow last week. Formally, this was his second foreign visit. Russian President Vladimir Putin met with his Uzbek counterpart on November 19.
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Both before and during the visit, it was repeatedly said that relations between the two countries are at an unprecedented high level, at which they emerged in recent years. In essence, this means: during the presidency of Mirziyoyev.
It was with his coming to power and the beginning of fundamental reforms in the country in the dialogue between Russia and Uzbekistan for a major breakthrough. In particular, the volume of mutual trade turnover over the past year is twice the value of the indicator of 2016, at the end of which Mirziyoyev won his first presidential elections, and if the countries manage to reach the level of $ 7 billion declared by the Uzbek leader by the end of this year, then the difference will be already two and a half times.
Large joint projects
In 2020, Russia and Uzbekistan increased their trade turnover by 15.6% compared to a year earlier. The figure is significant – almost $ 5.9 billion. In terms of the volume of trade with the Russian Federation, Uzbekistan from neighboring countries is second only to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. The republic mainly imports metals, certain oil products, timber and foodstuffs, as well as supplies cotton, textile products, fruits and nuts to Russia.
As Vladimir Putin noted during a meeting with his Uzbek counterpart, the dialogue between Moscow and Tashkent is notable for its depth and intensity and is multifaceted. According to him, great merit in this belongs to interregional cooperation. Among the regions of the Russian Federation that maintain active economic ties with the Uzbek regions, he named Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tatarstan, Chelyabinsk, Moscow, Ivanovo and Samara regions.
The unprecedented level of cooperation is not only about mutual trade. In recent years, Russia and Uzbekistan have been actively converging in various fields, from security issues to education, and developing large joint projects. There are more than 150 of them, and the total cost is usually $ 14 billion. The most significant of them is the construction of a nuclear power plant in the Jizzakh region with the participation of Rosatom. Earlier, with the help of Russia, the Tashkent metallurgical and Kandym gas processing plants were built, the total number of enterprises in Uzbekistan with the participation of Russian capital is 2 thousand.According to Mirziyoyev, the volume of accumulated investments in Uzbekistan has now exceeded the $ 10 billion mark.
Strategic directions
The advantages of such cooperation for Tashkent are obvious: it is a huge market for large-scale investments, the import of modern technologies, and, of course, labor migration. In Russia, according to official data, there are over a million migrants from Uzbekistan.
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Over the past year, the population of the government in recent years. If in 2015 this figure was 36.4%, now it is already about 50%. The population of Uzbekistan over the same years increased by 4 million people. The rapid relocation of people to cities leads to an increase in unemployment. Labor migration for Uzbekistan is not only a solution to this problem, but a significant inflow of funds into the economy: the volume of remittances from Russia in 2020 amounted to $ 4.81 billion. This is just 1 billion less than the country’s export earnings for the same year.
For the Russian Federation, Uzbekistan is also important as a promising partner. One of the strategic areas of cooperation is the oil and gas sector. In terms of gas production, the republic ranks third among the CIS states after the Russian Federation and Turkmenistan and is among the top ten CIS member states (63–65 billion cubic meters of gas per year). At the same time, the country’s leadership announces plans to completely abandon gas exports and expansion in order to use it for the needs of its own industry. Against the background of the dynamic development of the Uzbek industry, this opens up vast scope for investment for Russian oil and gas enterprises.
In parallel with the expansion. This step is not only useful (after all, Uzbekistan is among the top twenty countries in terms of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP), but also logical: the republic has an average of 320 sunny days a year. According to experts, the technical potential of solar energy in Uzbekistan. Only for the projects already planned, Uzbekistan has attracted 3 billion dollars of external borrowing.
In addition to investment and technological cooperation, this expands the potential for interaction in other areas, for example, in education. New high-tech industries require qualified personnel, and the Russian Federation traditionally participates in the training of specialists. About 43 thousand Uzbek universities are already studying in Russian universities, and branches of Russian higher schools are opening in Uzbekistan itself – now there are 14 of them. Against the background of the development of a project for the joint construction of a nuclear power plant, services of the national research university of MEPhI students are opening in Tashkent to train specialists for work at the station. Similar projects can be implemented in the field of green energy.
Geographic factor
Now Russia remains the largest investment partner of Uzbekistan after China. If you miss the moment, it will be very difficult to catch up with the Celestial Empire.
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An essential aspect here is the possibility of joining the EAEU. The Russian authorities have repeatedly expressed their hope for Uzbekistan’s full participation in the union, which will open up opportunities for reducing barriers to mutual trade. So far, Tashkent has agreed only to the status of an observer state.
Another important factor is geography. The countries of Central Asia represent a kind of buffer between Russia and Afghanistan; for a long time it has remained a hotbed of instability in the Asian region. The Taliban (banned in the Russian Federation) came to the fore in security and military cooperation.
The Uzbek-Afghan border is only 143 km long and runs along the Amu Darya River. The significance of this site cannot be underestimated: there is a large checkpoint located at the Friendship Bridge (still of Soviet construction). On this bridge, across which in 1979 Soviet troops entered Afghanistan and almost ten years later they left, there are not only automobile roads, but also railways in one of the Afghan cities of Mazar-i-Sharif. This makes the Uzbek section of the border a security area not only for the country itself, but for the entire region as a whole.