Azernews

June 4, 2015 

Uzbekistan plans to increase the volume of cargo traffics to maintain growth of GDP at the level of 8 percent.

Thus, cargo traffics should annually increase on average to 9.2 percent, said Bakhtiyor Ergashev, project coordinator of the Uzbekistan Center for Economic Research at the international conference "Transport corridor Uzbekistan - Latvia - EU states : new opportunities and perspectives" in Tashkent on June, 3.

Bakhtiyor said that cargo traffics should increase by 4.4 times and reach up to 6.04 billion tons over the next fifteen years.

He also mentioned investment issues in the framework of the conference.

In his opinion, the share of investments in the transport sector should increase from 3.35 percent in 2013 to 4.6 percent in 2030 relative to GDP. So, Uzbekistan should invest $46.7 billion to increase cargo transportation to 2030, according to CER experts.

Uzbekistan is completely surrounded by landlocked nations, as one of the doubly landlocked states of the world. In the result, prices of products from Uzbekistan increase due to extra expenses for transportation. This fact made Uzbekistan actively work on developing transport corridors to simplify export and imports of goods.

The conference was aimed at establishing efficient transport communications between Uzbekistan-Latvia and Uzbekistan-EU states as well as determining perspective transport routes, exchange experience in logistic management and so on.

Following the conference, participants discussed perspectives of interaction between Latvia and Uzbekistan in transport policy, the Great Silk Road project and transit of cargoes from Central Asia to the EU via Latvia.

Earlier, Uzbekistan planned to direct about $10 billion to projects on development of roads and railways, logistics centers and communications. The implementation of over 150 projects is provided within the program of development and modernization of production infrastructure in Uzbekistan for 2015-2019.

United Nations

June 5, 2015 

The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General.

Good afternoon.  Apologies to all of you who had expected the Queen of the Netherlands to be here, she will be here tomorrow.  We had a calendar malfunction, but she will be here tomorrow.

**Secretary-General's Travels

For today, I can tell you that the Secretary-General will depart New York on Saturday evening, 6 June, for a trip that will take him to Germany and Central Asia.  His first stop is Germany, where he will attend the official inauguration of the extension building of the World Conference Center in Bonn on 7 June.  Following that on 8 June, he will travel to Schloss Elmau to take part in meetings on terrorism and development at the Summit of G7 meeting with G7 partners.  While in Germany, he will also meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

On Tuesday, the Secretary-General will arrive in Tajikistan, where he will attend the opening ceremony of the High-level International Conference on the implementation of the International Decade, "Water for Life".  While in the capital, Dushanbe, he will also meet with President [Emomali] Rahmon and will visit Lake Sarez.  The following day, 10 June, the Secretary-General will visit Kazakhstan, where he will participate in the fifth Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions.  He will also meet with President [Nursultan] Nazarbayev, Prime Minister [Karim] Massimov, Foreign Minister [Erlan] Idrissov, and Speaker of the Senate Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

The Secretary-General will then travel on to Kyrgyzstan, on 11 June, he will attend the opening of the International Conference on "Development of Parliamentarianism".  He will also hold talks with President [Almazbek] Atambaev, Prime Minister Temir Sariev and the Speaker of Parliament, [Asilbek] Jeenbekov, and visit the city of Osh, where he will meet with civil society representatives and local authorities.

On 12 June, he will travel to Uzbekistan, where he will meet with the country's top officials, including President [Islam] Karimov and Foreign Minister [Abdulaziz] Kamilov.  The Secretary-General's final stop in Central Asia will be Turkmenistan, where he will meet with the President and other senior officials.  He will also address faculty and students at the International University for Humanities and Development in Turkmenistan.

Azernews

June 1, 2015 

South Korean GS Engineering & Construction and Uzbekistan's National Holding Company Uzbekneftegaz will jointly construct a gas chemical complex worth $4.5 billion in Uzbekistan.

This was noted in a memorandum of understanding signed during Uzbek President Islam Karimov's state visit to South Korea on May 27-29, a source in Uzbekistan's government circles told Trend.

The project envisages the creation of capacities for the production of olefins from methanol.

GS Engineering & Construction is one of the general contractors for the construction of the Ustyurt Gas Chemical Complex at Uzbekistan's Surgil field.

This is the first official visit of Islam Karimov abroad since his reelection to the presidency in March election.

President Karimov's visit to South Korea is perceived as a logical and natural continuation of high level ties, showing mutual political will to give more dynamism to practical collaboration in all cooperation areas.

Uzbekistan is South Korea's largest trading partner in Central Asia. A large diaspora of ethnic Koreans in the region lives here.

Trade-economic and investment cooperation have been steadily developing between Uzbekistan and Korea. The two countries have established the most-favored-nation regime in the sphere of economy.

In 2014, the trade turnover volume between the two countries amounted to $1.9 billion.

AUCC

June 5, 2015