Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- The 5th round of negotiations between the Republic of Uzbekistan and the Republic of Turkey on the terms of concluding the Agreement on Preferential Trade was held through video conferencing. Country delegations were represented by competent specialists from the involved ministries and departments.

The parties noted that the Preferential Trade Agreement is an important and effective tool to increase mutual trade up to US$5 billion, as outlined in the framework of the agreements reached by the Governments of the two countries during the visit of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan to Turkey in February this year.

The purpose of the agreement is to strengthen trade and economic relations by creating more favorable conditions for trade between producers and exporters of the two countries.

In particular, with respect to certain commodity items, customs duties will not apply or their rate will be significantly reduced.

The negotiations made it possible to comprehensively consider the articles developed by the parties to the draft Agreement, as well as to study in detail the lists of Uzbek and Turkish goods for which it is planned to apply the preferential trade regime in mutual trade operations.

Proposals and comments were also put forward on individual points of the Agreement, on the basis of which the document was amended and revised.

Along with this, the Turkish side announced the readiness of the Ministry of Trade of Turkey to provide the necessary technical assistance on issues of Uzbekistan’s accession to the World Trade Organization, including in terms of advising on the application of anti-dumping, countervailing duties, protective measures, as well as mechanisms for subsidizing business entities in agriculture sector.