Uzbekistan Nears WTO Membership After Resolving Key Issues with Russia

Uzbekistan is close to completing its negotiations with Russia on joining the World Trade Organization (WTO), having resolved all major issues, with only technical details remaining, according to Azizbek Urunov, the Special Representative of the President on WTO Affairs.

He shared the update, signaling a significant step forward in Uzbekistan’s path toward WTO membership, The Caspian Post reports, citing Uzbek media.

A meeting with the Russian negotiating team took place in Moscow last week to discuss outstanding issues related to Uzbekistan’s WTO accession. The Uzbek delegation included Azizbek Urunov, Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank Abror Mirzo Olimov, Deputy Minister of Investment, Industry and Trade Khurram Teshabayev, and Director of the Pharmaceutical Product Safety Center Alisher Temirov.

“The negotiations are now almost complete: all substantive elements have been agreed, and only a few technical points require final verification and confirmation,” Urunov wrote.

Uzbekistan’s WTO representative expressed his gratitude to Russia’s Minister of Economic Development Maksim Reshetnikov, Director of the Department of Trade Negotiations Ekaterina Mayorova, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the WTO Nikolai Platonov, and others “for their clarity on key requests, as well as for their constructive engagement and support throughout this process.”

Uzbekistan and Russia are expected to present the final outcomes of their negotiations at the WTO General Council meeting in Geneva in December.

“With this, we now have only Chinese Taipei left to conclude our remaining bilateral negotiations,” Urunov added.

He noted that he is in Washington this week for meetings with counterparts and to advance cooperation within the WTO framework.

In September, Uzbekistan signed bilateral market-access protocols with Argentina, Australia and Honduras, bringing the total number of concluded agreements to 29. The president’s WTO representative also announced that “principal agreements” had been reached with two additional WTO members.

At the end of October, Uzbekistan fully completed negotiations with the European Union on WTO accession. Around the same time, the country finalized talks with Panama.

In early November, Uzbekistan concluded bilateral negotiations with Canada, Panama and Ecuador. Urunov previously noted that full WTO membership required completing negotiations with only two remaining WTO members - Russia and Taiwan.