October 6, 2008

Politics:
President of Republic of Latvia arrives in Uzbekistan
President visited Khorezm region
Economics:
Priority: Multilateral economic relations
Uzbek-Latvian Business Forum is taking place in Tashkent
South Korea, Uzbekistan expanding cooperation
Uzbek entrepreneurs visit China
Society:
Mechanism for human rights provision under improvement
Karakalpakstan Betters Water Supply System, Report Says
Seminar on Averting Iodine Deficiency Held in Jizzakh
Style.Uz-2008: traditions and modernity

POLICY

PRESIDENT OF REPUBLIC OF LATVIA ARRIVES IN UZBEKISTAN

On the invitation of President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov on October 5 this year the President of the Republic of Latvia Valdis Zatlers arrived in Uzbekistan with a State visit, according to Jahon Information Agency.

Prime Minister of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoev met the top-level guest at the International Airport of Tashkent.

President of Latvia Valdis Zatlers met with the President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov. During the talks in Tashkent the presidents discussed further expanding bilateral cooperation, as well as the urgent problems of regional and international significance of mutual interest.

On the outcomes of the talks the sides plan to ink bilateral documents aimed at deepening the cooperation between Uzbekistan and Latvia.

Business forum with the participation of business circles of the two states is also planned to hold as a part of the visit of President of Latvia.

PRESIDENT VISITED KHOREZM REGION

President Islam Karimov visited Khorezm region on October 3 to familiarize himself with the socioeconomic reforms and changes in the agricultural sphere and the ongoing construction work in the area, UzA reported.

As in other regions of our country, farming is successfully developing in Khorezm region. The difficulty of this year related to water shortages affected the area as well. However, the farmers have grown a rich harvest of cotton.

The President visited the Bogot farm of the Bogot district and familiarized himself with the agricultural works here. He met the leading farmers, specialists of the agro-industrial complex and the public.

To date, one new school was built in the region, and 95 schools were renovated. In accordance with the President’s resolution of 8 July 2008 on the state program of improvement of children’s music and art school, 7 of the existing 15 music schools will be reconstructed and 8 will undergo capital repairs.

The head of the state drew the attention to the large-scale development of farming in the area and touched upon the next stage of reforms in this direction. Across the country, the process of further expanding and strengthening of farms is occurring. Currently, large farms at the expense of rational organization of labor produce richer harvest and have higher earnings. They can buy the necessary equipment, attract additional manpower and continually improve the soil. For small farms such opportunities are limited.

“Farming in Khorezm has been intensively developing,” said Islam Karimov. “Now it is necessary to move to the next important stage of farming. Measures have to be taken to unite small farms to increase the level of production in agriculture, expand farmers’ capacities and further improve the efficiency of reforms in the sector.”

This was also discussed at the President’s meeting at the regional administration. Its participants paid attention to the need for timely harvest of cotton.

The President visited the sergeants school of the North-Western Military Region, opened in September 2007 in Urgench. It teaches military training, computer technologies, humanities and foreign languages. The school has all the necessary conditions for enhancing the theoretical knowledge and military skills of the cadets. It has a training field, panoramic computerized training halls, and a modern library.

Last year, the head of the state also visited this school and gave recommendations on creating the necessary conditions for the students.

The President gave instructions to the heads of the school on the further improvement of the educational institution, living conditions and education.


ECONOMY

PRIORITY: MULTILATERAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS

The Uzbekistan delegation took part in the meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Economic Activity and Trade of SCO member states. The seventh meeting of the Ministers took place in Beijing on September 24-25.

The delegations of the member states discussed a wide range of issues related to the trade and economic cooperation within the SCO framework, including the development of mechanism to attract investments in sustainable social and economic growth of the SCO states, and implementation of multilateral projects.

The parties reviewed the updated draft of action plan on implementation of the Programme for multilateral trade and economic cooperation among the SCO member states. Priority attention was paid to the implementation of joint projects in transportation, telecommunication, modern technology, agriculture, energy and other fields.

At the last summit in August 2008, the heads of SCO member states noted the greater attention paid during the last years by SCO to the all-round development of the economic relations as one of the main directions of cooperation. When talking about this aspect of cooperation within the SOC framework, President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov pointed out that despite the progressive development of cooperation the Organization does not yet fully exploit the huge potential of its member states and that there is still a number of unutilized possibilities in the mining industry, energy, logistics, transportation, communications, social infrastructure, trade and tourism.

The meeting was also attended by the representatives of the observer states of the SCO and its neighboring countries. It was considered expedient to involve them in the activities held by SCO’s Business Council and Interbank Consortium.

UZBEK-LATVIAN BUSINESS FORUM IS TAKING PLACE IN TASHKENT

An Uzbek-Latvian Business Forum is taking place at International Business Center in Tashkent. The forum, which is attended by businesses of two states, is organized within the framework of the state visit of Latvian President Valdis Zatlers to Uzbekistan.

The business forum is directed to expand business contacts and strengthen economic cooperation between Uzbekistan and Latvia.

It is expected that the businesses of Uzbekistan and Latvia will consider investment and export opportunities of two states in sectional sessions, as well as current affairs and perspectives of further development of trade-economic between two countries.

In particular, the sides will discuss cooperation in transport and logistics, banking and finance, ICT, industry, light industry, food and tourism industries and others.

SOUTH KOREA, UZBEKISTAN EXPANDING COOPERATION

A delegation of business circles of the Republic of South Korea paid Uzbekistan a three-day visit last week, Uzbekistan Today newspaper reported.

Trade and economic relations between the two countries were established in 1992, and as of today, South Korea is one of leading trading partners of Uzbekistan in Asian-Pacific region. In 2007, the turnover between the two countries made up $583.9 mln, export – $69.8 mln, import – $514.1 mln.

For the further development of bilateral relations, strengthening partnership between representatives of the private sector and mapping out promising directions for expansion of business cooperation, representatives of South Korean delegation had a number of meetings with local businessmen, representatives of state bodies, sectoral associations, enterprises and corporations.

South Korean business circles were presented by delegates of industrial enterprises specializing in motor industry, manufacture of hydraulic and drilling equipment, safety equipment for mountain works, water-purifying mobile stations, electric equipment, load-lifting mechanisms and construction materials.

The head of Korean delegation, speaker of parliament of the South Korean city of Gwangmyeong, Sim Chung Sik, said Uzbekistan had created the necessary legislative base, and an organized infrastructure enabling effective development of small and private business, foreign investments and creation of new joint ventures. Such meetings, when the Uzbek and Korean businessmen can meet, discuss cooperation issues and conclude mutually advantageous contracts, are extremely useful. These are the very cooperation meetings to result in protocol of intentions and long-term contracts mapping out directions of future trade relations between the countries.

Today there are 313 joint Uzbek-Korean enterprises operate in Uzbekistan, including 41 with 100% Korean capital

UZBEK ENTREPRENEURS VISIT CHINA

China Import and Export Fair, also known as Canton Fair, to be held on October 15 – November 6 in Guanchzou city, is to gather the largest ever number of participants from Uzbekistan – 104 firms.

One of the world’s largest export-import fairs was inaugurated in spring, 1957. For more than 50 years of its existence the fair passed a huge road from a little purposeful Chinese fair to the largest business event in Asia.

The Trade & Economic Agreement between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Uzbekistan was signed in January, 1992. Starting from that moment the two countries are actively developing partner relations. There are more than 170 companies with Chinese capital in Uzbekistan. PRC has taken the leading place among Uzbekistan’s business partners.

For the further integration of business circles of the two countries and establishing close cooperation between private sectors, the Uzbek side, with the assistance of the Trade & Industrial Chamber (TIC) of China, founded the Uzbek-Chinese Trade House (UCTH) in Guangzhou city in 2006. Thanks to the UCTH, last year more than 500 businessmen from Uzbekistan had a chance to visit the 103rd Canton Fair where they signed a large number of contracts. Among the most significant projects of the trade house, there is delivering of equipment for the shoes factory Pyafzalchi, equipment for the furniture factory Toshkent Mebel, FOTON dumper trucks and frontload trucks for Kirasi Kurilish LLC.

Because of every-year expanding exposition, this year the fair takes place in a new exhibition complex Pazhou, and is divided into three phases: industrial and household equipment and IT; perfumes, consumer goods, souvenirs, jewels and toys; textiles, clothes, footwear, raw for textile, medicine.

SOCIETY

MECHANISM FOR HUMAN RIGHTS PROVISION UNDER IMPROVEMENT

Uzbekistan is set to widely celebrate the anniversary date of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In accordance with the Presidential Decree “On the action plan dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, different events, conferences and round-tables are taking place across the Republic.

As national and foreign experts have noted, the upshot of the efforts to implement the program will be not only an enhanced legal culture of the population and a strengthened legislative basis, but also an improved mechanism for the provision of human rights. The dialog between state bodies, nongovernmental organizations and law-enforcement bodies has been brought up to a totally new level. One of the most recent events that have been held in this regard in Tashkent was also dedicated to the issue of interaction of internal affairs bodies with other law-enforcement, governmental and nongovernmental organizations, national institutions for the protection of citizens’ rights and freedoms. The round-table which was attended by both national and foreign experts was organized by the Republic’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and OSCE project coordinator in Uzbekistan.

The participants discussed issues related to the improvement of cooperation, namely forms, new mechanisms and perspectives of interaction within the provision of citizens’ rights and freedoms as well as the implementation of important tasks of the judicial system.

“Worthy of attention is the fact that the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan pays special attention to the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which is seen in the specially adopted decree. The Republic has been doing a great deal of work in an effort to implement the said document,” said Istvan Vencel, OSCE project coordinator in Uzbekistan. “The project “Broadening of the opportunities of the department for the protection of human rights in cooperation with international organizations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Uzbekistan” is also aimed at the legal protection of citizens.

It is noteworthy that in September this year an Agency for the Protection of Human Rights and Legal Provision was launched within the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Agency is charged with ensuring a timely consideration of complaints and appeals from the population of the Republic during periods set by law.

As part of this event, an agreement was signed by the National Human Rights Center and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Uzbekistan. The agreement is aimed at the strengthening of cooperation between the two organizations.

As was noted by Akmal Saidov, Director of the National Human Rights Center, the said document envisions a broad spectrum of cooperation directions and, in essence, is a logical continuation of the previously established cooperation between the Ministry and the Center. He went on to add that initiatives of this kind testify to the attention which is being accorded in the Republic to the issues related to the protection of human rights.

Not every country may speak of similar experiences of cooperation among organizations dealing with issues related to human tights protection.

In the opinion of Musa Sever, Head of the Institute of New Democracies, Uzbekistan has achieved progress in terms of human rights protection. The expert says that in order to ensure that the measures being taken reach every citizen, specific steps such as this event are necessary. She also highly evaluated the initiative to conduct public control of the “Action plan dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”.

KARAKALPAKSTAN BETTERS WATER SUPPLY SYSTEM, REPORT SAYS

The Republic of Karakalpakstan takes measures on meeting the demand of rural population in drinking water, Jahon Information Agency reported.

In particular, in Shumanai District 14 artesian wells were dug and houses have been provided with access to water-supply networks. The specialists of hydro-geological research expedition of area adjacent to Aral accomplished this work on the order of Qishloqhojaliksuvqurilish department of the Republic of Karakalpakstan.

The workers plan to dig up 20 such wells and provide with a drinking water the rural population of the villages of Mayjap, Shahiman, Kamsarik, Kushterak, Kizil uzak, Kuk suv, Bahtli, Pasentov, Buzatov of the Chimbay District.

“The local people are very glad with betterment of water supply,” chairman of makhalla (local neighborhood community) of the Mayjap village Daryoboy Esemuratov said, “over four thousand people stay in our village. Water supply systems built at four places fully meet the local population’s need in drinking water.”

SEMINAR ON AVERTING IODINE DEFICIENCY HELD IN JIZZAKH

In the framework of implementing the Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan “On prophylaxis the iodine deficiency diseases” the relevant work is also held now in Jizzakh Province, according to Jahon Information Agency.

Establishment of four workshops to produce a quality salt the people in the area began to procure more of such disease-preventive type of salt. Besides, private entrepreneurs supply it from outside.

“The legal and physical entities who realize the iodine salt and foodstuff must strictly observe the norms of law,” the chief doctor at the State Center of Sanitary and Epidemiological Control in Jizzakh Province Khayitboy Latipov has said. “This process is under permanent control of doctors of our Center. This year the quality testing of salt was held at 1200 shops.”

According to him, with an aim to avert iodine deficiency among the fertile-age women and children the consistent measures on providing with iodine-containing medicines are being implemented, as well as explanatory works are now held. The healthcare establishments and regional departments of Soglom Avlod Uchun (‘For healthy generation’) Charitable Fund have supplied women and children with “Microyodid” tablets.

All of such endeavors and measures were spoken about at the seminar held in Jizzakh on preventing the iodine deficiency diseases. The Labor and Social Issues Committee at the Legislative Chamber of Oliy Majlis and Office of UNICEF in Uzbekistan organized the event. The medical workers, representatives of non-state non-profit organizations and self-governance bodies of citizens participated at it.

The participants of the seminar analyzed the work on averting iodine deficiency in the Jizzakh Province and defined measures on providing people with iodine-salt in full.

STYLE.UZ-2008: TRADITIONS AND MODERNITY

The third Design and Fashion Week Style.Uz will be held from 12 to 17 October in Tashkent and Samarkand. Its organizers are the Fund “Forum of Culture and Art of Uzbekistan” and the Tashkent Style House.

The number of prominent guests of the Design and Fashion Week is growing each year. Representatives of major international organizations and television companies working in the field of fashion, more than 20 well-known designers, owners of popular jewelry and fashion brands, stars of show business, editor of fashion magazines, public figures from Austria, Britain, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, China, USA, Turkey, France, Switzerland and Japan have expressed desire to participate in the event.

The program of the week is full of various activities. On the first day, immediately after the opening ceremony, the National Arts Center will host the grand defile of the Tashkent Style House and overseas designers. The venue of other major events of Style.Uz is the Creative Youth Palace. During the week, a large-scale exhibition of design and fashion will be held here, which will feature domestic fabrics, clothing, footwear, accessories by known and young designers, as well as innovations in the field of interior design and web design. The exhibition will also acquaint visitors with the main directions of the world of fashion.

During the week, master classes with participation of foreign designers and stylists will be organized. Among other events are young Uzbek designers show “Underground”, competition of sketches and photographs by students, fashion defile, exhibition of suzane and rarities. In addition, evenings of style and gastronomy and various presentations are also planned.

The final event of the week will be the national dress festival at the Registan Square in Samarkand.