Baku, Azerbaijan, May 24
By Fikret Dolukhanov – Trend:
Uzbekistan is planning to receive new trade preferences from the European Union (EU), the Uzbek media reported, referring to the talks in Tashkent between Foreign Trade Minister Jamshid Khodjaev and the working group of the Council of the EU for Eastern Europe and Central Asia on May 24.
Reportedly, the EU working group visited the country to familiarize with the political and social and economic reforms in Uzbekistan, as well as to discuss the prospects for expanding cooperation between Uzbekistan and the EU in the trade and economic sphere.
“One of the steps to expand trade with the EU can be the unilateral tariff preferences for Uzbekistan within the Generalized System of Preferences Plus (GSP+). Currently, the country enjoys the basic Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), according to which the country can export to the EU 3,000 commodity items without customs duties and 3,200 commodity items at reduced rates,” Khojayev noted.
He also said that in case of implementing the tariff preferences within the framework of GSP+, Uzbekistan will get duty-free access to more than 6,200 commodity items. He added that Uzbekistan is interested in promoting practical implementation by the EU countries of the agreement on bilateral trade in textile products (the so-called Textile Protocol).
The customs services of the EU member states currently continue to create difficulties regarding the supplies of Uzbek textile products. In this regard, the Uzbek side asked to consider possibility of assisting in implementation of the provisions of the Textile Protocol by the customs services and governments of the EU member states.
Khodzhaev believes that a coordinated logistics system is also one of the important factors in development of the trade relations. He urged the EU representatives to boost work on development of the TRACECA transport corridor and eliminate its technological shortcomings.
The EU is currently one of the most important trade and economic partners of Uzbekistan. Trade turnover with the EU countries amounted to $2.5 billion at the end of 2017, including $420.7 million of export.
Uzbekistan has a considerable potential in export of textiles, fruit and vegetable, transport, electrical and other products, but a number of barriers impeding the growth of export exist. Existing issues are planned to be discussed during the regular meeting of the Uzbekistan-EU Cooperation Committee and the Subcommittee on Economy, Trade and Investments in Brussels on June 6-8.
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