Alisher Ruziev, acting Chairman of the Surkhandarya regional council of UzLiDeP:

UzLiDeP believes that the official visit of the President of the Republic of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon to our country is a logical continuation of the consistently developing mutually beneficial and active dialogue.

One of the most important results of the state visit was the signing of Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Emomali Rahmon the Joint Statement and the Strategic Partnership Agreement between the Republic of Uzbekistan and the Republic of Tajikistan. The parties discussed a wide range of issues and expressed their readiness to strengthen mutual understanding and constructive cooperation.

26 documents on cooperation in the areas of standardization, metrology and certification, antimonopoly policy and consumer rights protection, conduction of joint scientific research in geology, cooperation in the military, scientific and technical, agricultural spheres, in the areas of food security, education, youth policy, culture and art were also signed.

Agreements have been reached on trade, economic, scientific, technical and cultural-humanitarian cooperation between the regions of the two countries, in particular Surkhandarya and Khatlon, Samarkand and Sughd regions. This concerns the importance of implementing joint measures to expand cooperation between business structures and border regions of the two countries.

In the opinion of UzLiDeP, this visit was a reflection of mutual trust and the desire to bring bilateral relations to a higher level, giving impetus to their development on the whole range of issues.

Farkhod Adilov, activist of UzLiDeP, entrepreneur:

In a short time, a solid cooperation has been established between friendly Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, which is one of the priorities of the foreign policy of both states. The current official visit of E.Rahmon to Uzbekistan was an opportunity to discuss issues of expanding cooperation in various fields, strengthening ties between regions, large enterprises and entrepreneurs of the two countries, as well as exchanging views on international and regional issues of mutual interest.

We are the activists of UzLiDeP have identified for themselves such a strategic task as bringing the mutual trade to 1 billion dollars a year. Due to the adopted targeted measures, the trade turnover is dynamically growing. In the first half of this year, the trade turnover increased by 35 percent. In 2018, trade agreements were signed for more than $300 million.

According to the party, the businessmen of both countries will make a worthy contribution to the improvement of trade, economic and investment cooperation between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, raising it to a new level in the fields of agriculture, food, textile and light industry, trade, tourism, electricity, construction, chemical industry, electrical engineering, etc. One of the important mechanisms can be the organization of the dialogue of representatives of business circles of the two countries under the aegis of political Parties (forums, exhibitions, fairs, etc.) and to facilitate the realization of joint business projects.

We are confident that UzLiDeP will step up efforts to strengthen cooperation ties between entrepreneurs of two countries and within the framework of joint projects will enter the markets of third countries.

Political parties could also establish inter-party cooperation within the framework of information on mechanisms of mutual protection of investments, simplification of tax duties, rules of trade, etc. In general, all this will be aimed at expanding cooperation in trade and economic, transport-communication, investment, agricultural and water management, tourism and other spheres.