The memorandum of understanding envisages that Uzbekistan will complete negotiations and join to the agreement on free trade zone of the CIS from 18 October 2011.

Both documents were signed within the official visit of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin to Uzbekistan.

During meeting with the Uzbek President Islam Karimov, Vladimir Putin stated that Russia is planning to develop relations with Uzbekistan as the strategic partner in Central Asia.

He said Uzbekistan is one of key partners for Russia in the region. He said Russia has peculiar relations with Uzbekistan. “We clearly understand potential of the country and we will build our relations with Uzbekistan in line with its potential and based on relations between our people,” Putin stated.

Uzbek President Islam Karimov, in his turn, said that Uzbekistan considers Russia as a power, which always cared about situation in Central Asia.

Islam Karimov said that relations between Uzbekistan and Russia are developing. He said that trade turnover between two states grew by 9% year-on-year in 2011 and by 40% in the first quarter of 2012.

According to the State Statistics Committee of Uzbekistan, trade turnover between Uzbekistan and Russia grew by 40.6% in the first quarter of 2012. At the same time, Uzbekistan’s exports rose from US$611.1 million in the first quarter of 2011 to US$952.3 million in the first quarter of 2012, while imports – from US$453.7 million to US$544.6 million in the reporting period.

President Islam Karimov said that the figures talk for themselves. He said that the countries should not care about figures, but work on expanding nomenclature of trade items. He said that Russia supply low number of goods to Uzbekistan and Uzbekistan wants to expand nomenclature of traded goods, which would serve for favour of economies of Russia and Uzbekistan.