Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan Vladimir Norov and the EU Special Representative for Central Asia Terhi Hakala held a meeting in Dushanbe.

In January-September 2022, Uzbekistan's trade volume with the countries of the European Union amounted to 3.13 billion US dollars. Thus, compared to the same period last year, there was an increase of 14.8 percent. This was announced at a meeting between the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan Vladimir Norov and the EU Special Representative for Central Asia Terhi Hakala in Dushanbe.

During the meeting, the key issues of further strengthening and development of cooperation in investment, trade, science and education, ecology, tourism and other spheres were discussed.

On July 6 of this year, initialing ceremony of an Agreement on Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation between the Republic of Uzbekistan and the European Union was held in Brussels. The new document was developed in place of the current Partnership and Cooperation Agreement signed in 1996 and is intended to bring bilateral cooperation to a qualitatively new level.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan and the EU Special Representative for Central Asia underlined the importance of the Agreement's soonest signing.

On November 17-18, Samarkand will host the EU - Central Asia ministerial meeting, as well as the first Regional EU - Central Asia Connectivity Conference. It is expected that the Samarkand Conference will help to discuss such important issues as the improvement of digital connectivity, the development of the transport network, agriculture and energy.

During the dialogue, Mr Norov and Ms Hakala also exchanged views on the organizational aspects of this major Conference.

Finnish diplomat Terhi Hakala was appointed EU Special Representative for Central Asia last summer. The EUSRs work under the authority of High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy and support his work in the implementation of the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).