Uzbekistan concludes negotiations with 11 countries on WTO membership

On February 26, Azizbek Urunov, the special presidential representative on WTO issues, signed protocols with the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Tsuji Kyoto and the permanent representative of the Dominican Republic at the WTO and UNCTAD, Jose Sanchez Fang.

On February 27, Deputy Prime Minister Jamshid Khodjayev and Israeli Minister of Economy and Industry Nir Barkat signed a protocol confirming the terms of Israel's market access.

In this way, Uzbekistan concluded negotiations with 11 WTO member states. With 9 of these 11 countries, protocols on the completion of bilateral market access negotiations have been signed, with 2 countries (Sri Lanka and Thailand) the process of agreeing a draft protocol has begun.

Georgia was the first to conclude negotiations with Uzbekistan in this regard in April last year. In November, it was reported that protocols were signed with three countries – Turkey, Mongolia and Saudi Arabia.

Azizbek Urunov, the special representative of the President of Uzbekistan on WTO issues, clarified to Gazeta.uz that Uzbekistan’s bilateral negotiations within the framework of WTO membership depend on the number of “interested” WTO members with whom negotiations are being conducted on terms of market access.

“All WTO members have the right to conduct bilateral negotiations with a member state of the organization. But in practice, not everyone does this. The number of people interested in bilateral trade will vary depending on the economy of the WTO signatory and its trade relations with the member countries of the organization. For example, African countries have almost no trade relations with Uzbekistan, they are not very interested,” the special presidential representative explained.

He said that the main interest is shown by the countries that are traditional trade partners of Uzbekistan.

“And they require certain conditions to be met to enter the organization in order to have a wider access to the market of the member country. For example, 10-15 countries may be interested in joining the WTO. In particular, there were 12-13 negotiating countries in East Timor. In the case of Uzbekistan, we are talking about several dozen countries that are interested in negotiations,” he said.

Last April, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said that the country must join the WTO as part of its strategy to double exports. Membership in this organization is one of the priorities of Uzbekistan, he said.

Uzbekistan started the initiative to become a WTO member in 1994, but in 2005, it stopped this process. In 2020, the work on joining the organization was resumed and the first meeting with the working group was held.