Azernews.Az

China has been and still is a friendly country for Uzbekistan with which cooperation has been built on a long term and mutually beneficial basis, President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov, receiving on Tuesday Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who arrived on an official visit to Tashkent, the Uzbek National Information Agency (UzA) reported.

During the meeting, the parties emphasized that relations between the two countries has been developing in the political, economic, trade, investment, transport and communication, cultural, humanitarian and other fields, as well as in the framework of the authoritative international and regional organizations such as the UN and the SCO.

A Joint Declaration on the establishment of strategic partnership signed in 2012 during the Summit in Beijing reflected the high level of cooperation between the two countries, and gave an impetus to further expansion of the Uzbek-Chinese comprehensive dialogue.

Uzbekistan and China are actively developing cooperation in oil and gas, petrochemical, chemical and mining industries, transport and logistics, engineering, telecommunications, manufacturing of electrical engineering and modern construction materials, as well as several other sectors of the economy, which Chinese companies have recognized experience and possess advanced technology.

Last year, bilateral trade compared with the previous period rose by almost 25 percent to $3.23 billion. The same dynamic and sustained growth remains in the current year.

Currently, a number of leading Chinese companies are involved in joint high-tech projects in the special industrial zone Jizzak.

The sides attached great importance to the forthcoming state visit of President Xi Jinping in Uzbekistan.

They also exchanged opinions on key regional and international issues, as well as other issues of mutual interest, UzA reported.

The Foreign Minister of China expressed his appreciation to President Karimov for the warm welcome and the opportunity to discuss topical issues on the bilateral agenda.