October 22, 2007

Politics:
On the Visit To Turkmenistan
Economics:
Roundtable Discusses Financial Reporting Betterment Issues
ChemPlastAsia Uzbekistan 2007 and MiningWorld Uzbekistan 2007 to open soon
Tax accountability in electronic variant
Proposals for foreign investors
Society:
Education is an engine of progress
Samarkand Maternity & Childhood Center Opts For New Projects
Best practice of medical science

POLITICS

ON THE VISIT TO TURKMENISTAN

As has been reported earlier, on October 18-19, 2007 the President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov paid a State visit to Turkmenistan, Jahon Information Agency reported.

Following all procedures of official welcome to the high-ranking guest, the two Presidents – Islam Karimov and Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov –have secluded for their tete-a-tete. The reports by local newspapers have said that the leaders spoke about the consistent development of relations between the two countries, and the visit by Uzbek leader to Ashgabat would serve a new impetus to bilateral mutually beneficial partnership based on the trust and respect.

Then the talks proceeded with participation of officials from both sides at the delegation-level format.

“The Ashgabat Summit is yet another evidence to the expanding cooperation between our countries,” – President Islam Karimov has said, while speaking at the talks.

President of Turkmenistan is reported to have said that President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov is the most respected and honorable guest of Turkmenistan. According to him, the approaches of both sides on all issues of cooperation and the attitude to the international problems addressed at the negotiations are mostly similar, or close.

Later October 18 the festive ceremony took place in the city Palace of Rukhiyat (‘Spirituality’) dedicated to the State visit by the President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov to Turkmenistan.

Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov announced about conferring on President of Islam Karimov the honorable title of Turkmenistan “Khurmatli el yoshullisi” (‘Respected man of the nation’) ‘for the outstanding merits in developing the Turkmen – Uzbek relations, strengthening friendship and cooperation of people of the two countries’. President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov has festively presented the said high award to the Leader of Uzbekistan.

During the second day of his stay in Turkmenistan, the papers wrote, Islam Karimov visited the mausoleum of the first President of this country Saparmurat Niyazov, who for over the span of many years led Turkmenistan and enormously contributed to the development of the Uzbek –Turkmen relations. In particular, S.Niyazov’s visit to Uzbekistan in 2004 resulted in signing the Treaty on friendship, enhancing trust and development of cooperation, the reports have added.

President Islam Karimov has paid respect to the memory of the first President of Turkmenistan and laid a wreath to his mausoleum.

Uzbek Leader is also reported to have laid wreath to the Independence monument erected in the downtown Ashgabat. President has planted a tree at the Alley of Honorable Guests. This act of good will, no doubt, has become yet another embodiment of the centuries-old friendship of the two countries.

As a part of his stay in the country, President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov visited the museum of the first President of Turkmenistan at the Saparmurat Turkmenbashi National Cultural Center.

Also, Islam Karimov is reported to have paid visit to the Equestrian Sports Complex in Ashgabat. The Turkmen people from of old have been famous for their special reverence for horses. The nation’s coat of arms also has a depiction of a horse.

At the complex the President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov presented the purebred horse to the Uzbek Leader. This, in its turn, has served as a token of the highest consideration and honor on the part of the leadership and people of Turkmenistan to the President of Uzbekistan as well as to the entire Uzbek nation.

In keeping with Decree of President of the Republic of Uzbekistan the President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov has been awarded the Order of Uzbekistan “Buyuk khizmatlari uchun” (‘For great merits’), ‘for enormous merits in developing the bilateral relations, strengthening friendship and cooperation between the two countries,’ according to President Islam Karimov.

The Ashgabat Summit, the Uzbek newspapers wrote, saw the signing of several documents, which would serve the long-term interests of both Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. In particular, the sides have inked the Interstate treaty on further strengthening the friendly relations and comprehensive cooperation and the Interstate treaty on economic cooperation.

These documents are set to further promote the friendly and partnership relations between the two states. And there are all grounds to state that this visit, which has demonstrated the sincerity of presidents, mutual respect and trust, has fully been fruitful.

ECONOMICS

ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSES FINANCIAL REPORTING BETTERMENT ISSUES

Financial system is one of the important factors of economy’s stability. It ensures the correct and sober management of economy, as well as development of enterprises and organizations, and the economy, itself, as a whole. Thus, the country now pays a particular attention to raising the efficiency of this sphere’s operation.

Presidential Resolution of June 15, 2005 “On improving the system of bookkeeping submitted by entrepreneurship entities and enhancing accountability for its illegal demand” has served as a new impetus to better such work. From then on and based on this document the small firms and companies submit their bookkeeping reports not on the monthly basis, as it was the case before, but every three months.

Such reports can also be submitted in an electronic form. This, in its turn, creates big opportunities for the companies and serves to save time and means for them.

The roundtable “Reform of accounting reports in Uzbekistan: results and prospects” held in Tashkent last week discussed the aforementioned issues. The staff members of ministries of finance and justice of the Republic of Uzbekistan, entrepreneurs, accountants, defense lawyers and representatives of international organizations participated at it, the report by Uzbekistan National News Agency has said.

Coordination of the national accounting reports system with the requirements of market economy and international standards of financial reporting open up broad opportunities to attract foreign investment, as much as for the development of economy. At the same time, the attention is paid to ensuring the transparency of financial information and making it easy to utilize.

The roundtable also saw the detailed exchange of views on general financial reporting for the companies and organizations, and accounting reporting on investment commitments.

CHEMPLASTASIA UZBEKISTAN 2007 AND MININGWORLD UZBEKISTAN 2007 TO OPEN SOON

For the first time Tashkent will become the expo-centre of the chemical industry, plastic, rubber and mining equipment, Uzreport.com Business Information Portal reported.

International exhibitions ChemPlastAsia Uzbekistan 2007 and MiningWorld Uzbekistan 2007 will be held on November 6-8, 2007 at UzExpoCentre in Tashkent.

The organizers of the exhibition are ITE Uzbekistan and its partner ITE Exhibitions and Conferneces Ltd (UK).

Simultaneous organization of these two major industrial exhibitions will provide a good opportunity for the optimization of the visits, demonstration of chemical and mining industries to potential customers, specialists in the fields, and other concerned entities. It will serve as an optimal platform for sharing experience and finding integrated industrial solutions.

ChemPlastAsia Uzbekistan 2007 is a new project of the ITE Uzbekistan's series of industrial exhibitions. The exposition will include feedstock, resources, and equipment for the chemical industry, controlling and metering as well as laboratory equipment, chemicals and reagents, chemical technologies and scientific innovations, technology and equipment for the production and processing of plastic and caoutchouc, resources and materials for the production of plastic and rubber goods, etc.

The Second Uzbek International Exhibition MiningWorld Uzbekistan 2007 promises to become one of the major events in this industry in the region. The exhibition brings together the professionals of the mining industry and demonstrates the latest achievements of domestic and foreign companies currently standing at the forefront of the world production of mining equipment. It demonstrates contemporary trends in the development of mining industry, strengthens economic and scientific contacts and helps find new customers and investors.

ChemPlastAsia Uzbekistan 2007 and MiningWorld Uzbekistan 2007 international exhibitions will close the fall season of 2007 for the ITE Uzbekistan Company and its partner ITE Exhibitions & Conferneces Ltd.

TAX ACCOUNTABILITY IN ELECTRONIC VARIANT

Specialists of the Scientific-Information Center of New Technologies under the Uzbek State Tax Committee have developed a software complex of electronic tax clearing and financial reports on taxpayers.

The pilot launching of the software complex that allows computerizing the process of making electronic tax clearing and financial reports on taxpayers and processing them in agencies of the State Tax Service was in 2006. Issuing electronic variant of reports will help taxpayers to reduce the time of making tax reports and introducing them as well as the number of mistakes.

The integration of this software began in Tashkent and Andijan regions where the number of users exceeds eight thousand.

The Director of Scientific-Information Center of New Technologies under the Uzbek State Tax Committee R. Mustafakulov notes that the number of users of electronic software complex is growing.

PROPOSALS FOR FOREIGN INVESTORS

The State Property Committee of Uzbekistan announced two tenders on selling 47% of shares of OSC “Qo’qon spirt” and 51% of OSC “O’zbekiston shampani” to foreign investors, Uzbekistan Today newspaper reported.

The initial price of share holdings of the “Qo’qon spirt” is US$ 8.2 million and that of “O’zbekiston shampani” US$ 2.3 million and their investment liabilities are US$ 3 million and US$ 1.2 million accordingly.

The tender terms state that an investor that is ready to offer the highest price for the sold share holdings and take the responsibility for more investment liabilities will enjoy advantage. The deadline of applying for the tender is November 1, 2007.

The OSC “Qo’qon spirt”, located in Kokand (Ferghana region), is the biggest alcohol manufacturer in Uzbekistan. Its capacity is 2.4 million deciliters of alcohol a year.

The OSC “O’zbekiston shampani” is in Tashkent. It was set up in 1942. The company is specialized in manufacturing champagne and other soft and strong drinks as well as prospecting wine materials

SOCIETY

EDUCATION IS AN ENGINE OF PROGRESS

The Coordinating Board of the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Special Education of Uzbekistan has approved developed edition of state higher educational standards, according to Uzbekistan Today newspaper.

“The state standards for higher education were issued in 2001”, said Akbarali Umarov, a Departmental Director of the Center for Higher and Secondary Special Education Development. “The new standards will be valued when concerning resolution is signed by Rustam Kasimov, Minister of Higher and Secondary Special Education. An educational standard in Uzbekistan is a minimum of knowledge and skills which must be mastered by students. The standard developers realize that a student of a higher educational establishment is a person who has fundamental basis of their profession and is capable of self-perfection and full of ideas and having obligatorily computer skills.

The new standards differ from the current ones in that they ensure requirements for every specialty that has appeared in recent two or three years. There are lots of such specialties. With the development of Uzbekistan as a full participant of international relations the higher education has started to train specialists of diplomatic and consular law. The computerization and development of Internet in the country caused the organization of such educational section as “information safety”. Training such specialists as “housing market worker, estimator and realtor” and “insurance underwriter” is timely for the Republic. Some new specialties have appeared as a result of tendencies in the world science such as “bio-information”, “biomedical engineering” and “nanotechnologies”.

The developed standards guarantee much wider use of resources of information centers, established instead of libraries of higher educational institutions, in teaching process. It is traditional in Uzbekistan that a tutor recommends the students to use electronic textbooks, Internet resources and ZiyoNET national educational portal aside with traditional literature for self-instruction.

While developing the new higher educational standards, specialists have paid special attention to requirements of employers for higher educational students. They have taken into consideration transformation in education of foreign countries as well. After all, training competitive specialists is one of the basic tasks of higher educational establishments of Uzbekistan.

The development of teaching process aims to increase not only the quality of education but also image of Uzbek higher educational institutions in the international market of educational service”.

SAMARKAND MATERNITY & CHILDHOOD CENTER OPTS FOR NEW PROJECTS

Uzbekistan pays a special attention to raising the quality of medical services rendered to the population, protection of motherhood and childhood in reforming the system of healthcare, as well as establishing the healthy way of life.

These objectives are also the priority ones for the Samarkand center for protection of motherhood and childhood. This Center has been operating since 2003 in line with the World Health Organization’s “Safe motherhood” program.

It has been implementing the new projects based on the achievements of a modern medicine. Thanks to that many female patients now do not experience the post-delivery complications and do not suffer from many pre-delivery diseases, the report by Uzbekistan National News Agency Russian-language website said.

“Safe motherhood” program envisages the participation of the close people to women during her deliveries, the opportunity for her to have her baby just after its birth, and feeding the newborn just with a mother milk,” - the director of center Sayora Sobirova is reported to have said. “After repairing and refurbishing the Center with the latest medical equipment and inventory the quality of our work has gone up,” – she added.

In line with the State program “Year of social protection” the Center has been totally repaired and the maternity rooms were supplied with all necessary equipment. Also, the recreational sporting hall has been long operating at the Center, according to the report.

BEST PRACTICE OF MEDICAL SCIENCE

Research Institute of immunology under the Uzbekistan Academy of sciences, the only one of its kind on the territory of Central Asia actively participate in the development of medicine, based on molecular and genetic level

- The researches, carried out by the specialists of the institute show the influence of natural and climatic and unfavorable production factors on the firmness of individual’s immune system, - speaks research worker of Research Institute of immunology, Adolat Umarova. – At the same time it is developing the recommendation on maintenance people’s health. These recommendations find a wide use in formation of healthy life style of population.

As a result of collaboration between Stanford University and Oxford institute of molecular medicine was defined and registered into International genes’ list of Uzbek population. Continuing the theme of researches, Research Institute, jointly with the Paster Institute of French Centre of scientific researches carries out the study of antropo-lingvo-ethnogenetic correlation of native population of Central Asia. The achievements in this field are widely used by the developers of new methods of diagnostics and treatment genetically conditioned diseases.

Fundamental researches, realized together with the Institute of immunology under the Ministry of Health and social development of Russia with the assistance of research centers of Uzbek Ministry of Health, gave an opportunity to develop the criteria of development prognosis, the prophylaxis and early revelation a number of diseases including pancreatic diabetes, oncologic, allergic, hepatitis B,C, HIV. At present, these developments are introduced into the medical practice.