Among them is the Agreement on Strategic Partnership with the French Development Agency for the implementation of the Cooperation Program for 2023-2025 and the Program of Cooperation between Foreign Ministries for the period 2023-2024.
Declarations on cooperation in the field of cultural and historical heritage, preschool, public and higher education, and the development of public service were also signed.
Moreover, documents have been signed in the field of civil aviation, the fight against corruption, professional development of judges, French language learning and in other areas. Bilateral agreements have been reached on the implementation of priority projects of trade, economic, investment and financial cooperation worth more than €6 billion. The visit has created favourable conditions for expanding cooperation between the two countries.
Trade and economic cooperation of Uzbekistan with France
Currently, the trade turnover between Uzbekistan and France is growing. For 10 months this year, it has already amounted to $250 million, while exports have grown to $68 million, which is almost 8 times more than in the same period last year. In Uzbekistan's exports to France, the main export commodity is chemical products. In addition, dried vegetables, fruits, as well as services are exported in small volumes.
Uzbekistan's imports from France are represented by chemical products for foundries in metallurgy, pharmaceutical products, perfumes, vehicles, electrical goods, medical equipment, food, mainly dairy products, as well as transport services. In 2021, a significant increase in imports was associated with the purchase of aviation equipment from France for almost $80 million.
Together with trade with France, investment cooperation is successfully developing. Since 2017, the number of enterprises with French capital has increased 3.5 times from 13 to 46 enterprises, half of them with 100% French capital. By the end of 2021, the volume of disbursed investments and loans from France amounted to almost $300 million, including foreign direct investment – $70 million and loans – $230 million.
In Uzbekistan, with the participation of French investments, a number of major investment projects are being implemented in the field of energy, water supply, animal husbandry, construction of tourist infrastructure, etc. In particular, projects worth almost $1 billion are being implemented only with the assistance of the French Development Agency. These are the construction of a solar photovoltaic plant in the Samarkand region, a combined-cycle power plant in the Syrdarya region, modernization of the Tashkent water sector and drinking water supply in the Surkhandarya region, and others.
According to the CERR estimates, taking into account the list of goods that France imports, it is possible to increase exports of textile products, in particular ready-made clothing, some types of fruit and vegetable products (dried fruits, nuts, legumes, etc.), polymers, certain types of electrical products (copper wire, copper tubes) and others.
The export of tourist services is also a promising direction by taking the necessary measures to increase the number of French tourists visiting Uzbekistan.
Attracting French investments and technologies
A more promising area of economic cooperation may be to attract French investments and technologies to create modern production facilities for the production of finished products with high added value, both for the domestic market and for export to third countries.
Investment cooperation between Uzbekistan and France is promising in many sectors of the economy, in particular, in areas where France occupies a leading position in the world, for example, mechanical engineering, energy, chemical industry, including perfumery, pharmaceutical industry, agriculture, in particular winemaking, production of building materials, as well as tourism and science.
Summarizing, we should say that over the past 30 years of independence, Uzbekistan passed a long way in its socio-economic development and is no longer the country that sells raw materials and buys equipment. Uzbekistan already exports products with high added value, organizes assembly plants of cars and machinery in neighbouring countries, actively participates in industrial cooperation, as well as in joint scientific research with other countries. Not only the economy is growing, but the quality of human potential is also growing, which is given a lot of attention in the process of ongoing reforms.
Accordingly, in recent years, trade and economic cooperation with France has been expanding and diversifying, covering more and more sectors and directions, but despite this, it has a huge untapped potential.
Opinion by Yuri Kutbitdinov, Center for Economic Research and Reforms under the Administration of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan[1]
Content supplied by Uzbekistan Embassy in Brussels
[1] The Center for Economic Research and Reforms (CERR) under the Administration of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan is both a research center and an Accelerator of socio-economic reforms. CERR provides comments and advice on suggestions for socio-economic programming and policies by the Ministries to solve the main development issues in a swift, operational and efficient way. CERR is in the Central Asian Top-10 by the «Global Go To Think Tank Index Report 2020» (USA).
