Tashkent (UNA-OIC) – On August 17-18, at the invitation of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King of Saudi Arabia Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev will pay a state visit to this country.
According to Uzbekistan National News Agency (UzA), High-level talks will take place in Jeddah. Issues of further enhancing multilateral cooperation between the two countries will be discussed. The primary attention will be paid to the issues of the green economy, the sphere of high technologies and digitalization, innovations, small businesses and entrepreneurship.
Following the summit, a large package of bilateral documents is expected to be signed.
The President of Uzbekistan will also hold meetings with the heads of leading Saudi companies and prestigious international structures – the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Islamic Development Bank.
The President will visit Holy Mecca and Medina. The visit will become the first visit of the President of Uzbekistan to Saudi Arabia over the past 30 years.
This historic visit comes within the framework of the two countries’ efforts to strengthen bilateral relations and deepen cooperation in various fields.
In July 2021, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan visited Uzbekistan in the context of activating bilateral relations. The Saudi Foreign Minister also participated in the international conference “Central and South Asia: Regional Interdependence, Challenges and Opportunities” held during the same month.
At that time, the Uzbek President received the Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs at the headquarters of the international conference, where the two sides discussed the importance of enhancing inter-investment in light of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, which provides many promising opportunities, especially in technology, innovation and renewable energy.
Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia follow the same approach to many regional and international issues, adopting similar positions on regional security and confronting modern threats and challenges.
The two countries also continue to exercise mutual support for their respective positions and candidacies within the framework of international organizations, as Uzbekistan supported the candidatures of Saudi Arabia for membership in the United Nations Social and Economic Council for the period 2019-2021 (2018), the Council against Discrimination against Women (2018), and the Human Rights Council (2020), UNESCO Executive Board (2019), World Heritage Committee (2019) and others.
In 2020, Saudi Arabia supported the election of Uzbekistan to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
On the economic level, the two countries seek to enhance trade exchange between them, as trade indicators from January to June 2022 amounted to more than 95 million US dollars.
Recently, the two countries exchanged visits by economic delegations headed by senior officials from both sides to enhance economic cooperation in various fields, especially with the great potential of the Saudi economy, as Saudi Arabia is a member of the Group of Twenty of the largest global economies.
The two countries also sought to enhance investment activities in the energy field. In this regard, close cooperation was established between the Ministry of Energy of Uzbekistan and the Saudi company ACWA Power, with the signing of a number of investment agreements totalling about $3 billion.
