zbekistan has virtually completed negotiations on the country’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) with three states. This was announced at a press conference on March 31 by Deputy Head of the Department for Cooperation with the WTO of the Ministry of Investments, Industry and Trade Amirbek Mukhamedov.
According to him, the working group on Uzbekistan’s accession to the WTO includes 47 countries in total.
“All of them initially expressed a desire to negotiate access to the market for goods and services. Negotiations are currently underway with 31 countries. Of these, we can say that we have completed or are in the process of completing negotiations with three countries – this is Georgia, we are now at the final stage with Mongolia and Turkey,” he said.
In early April, at the 9th meeting of the Uzbek-Georgian Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation in Tashkent, a protocol was signed on the completion of bilateral negotiations on access to the market for goods and services between Georgia and Uzbekistan as part of accession to the WTO.
Uzbekistan launched an initiative to join the WTO in 1994, but suspended the process in 2005. In 2020, work on joining the organization was resumed and the first meeting with the working group was held. In mid-March of this year, the sixth meeting of the working group on Uzbekistan’s accession to the WTO was held in Geneva.
Today, negotiations are underway on the trade regime and obligations, Amirbek Mukhamedov said. He noted that it is difficult to name the exact date of Uzbekistan’s accession to the WTO, since this process is complex and requires coordination with each member of the organization. For example, it took 13 years for Kazakhstan, 10 years for Russia, he said.