Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit Uzbekistan
By Trend
The President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping will visit Uzbekistan next year, as was announced following the result of negotiations between the delegations of the governments of the two countries, which took place in Tashkent, Trend reports citing Uzbek media outlets.
The negotiations took place within the framework of the 18th meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
As part of the meeting, the Uzbek side invited Chinese partners to participate in the International Investment Forum, which will be held on March 4-6, 2020 in Tashkent. A proposal was put forward to hold the I Uzbek-Chinese Interregional Forum as part of Xi Jinping’s planned visit to Uzbekistan in 2020.
Furthermore, the signing of documents on cooperation in the fields of trade, economics, investment, banks and finance, transport and communications, agricultural exports and technical cooperation took place there well.
The representative of the two countries outlined common tasks to expand bilateral trade and bring its volume by the end of 2020 to $10 billion.
Currently, the volume of investments in the economy of Uzbekistan by China has exceeded $9 billion. These investments are directed to the development of the oil, gas, chemical, energy, telecommunications sectors and the implementation of infrastructure-oriented investment projects of strategic importance.
According to Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Finance’s "Draft Budget for Citizens", in 2020 the debt of Uzbekistan to China will reach $ 3.006 billion.
From Jan. 2015 to Jan. 2019, government debt to China gradually increased from over $1 billion to over $1.9 billion, adding $200-$300 million a year. By early 2020, growth over 12 months will be over $1 billion, or 53 percent.
China is the largest trade and economic partner of Uzbekistan. According to the results of 9 months of this year, mutual trade turnover increased by 33 percent and amounted to $5.9 billion. In 2018, trade between the two countries amounted to $6.4 billion. In Aug. 2019, China and Uzbekistan created a joint investment fund with a statutory fund of $1 billion .
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