As reported earlier, President of Hungary Pal Schmitt is paying an official visit to Uzbekistan on invitation of the President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov.

Main events of the visit started with the official welcoming ceremony in Kuksaroy. Guard of honour has been lined up. Two leaders inspected the Guard of honour.

After the welcoming ceremony, the leaders of two states held face-to-face negotiations. Uzbek President Islam Karimov said that Uzbekistan considers the visit of Hungarian President as historic in bilateral relations and good opportunity to give impulse to development of multilateral cooperation and mutually beneficial partnership between two states.

It was noted that Uzbekistan is for boosting and strengthening of multilateral relations between two states, taking into account existing potential, including strategic position of two states in Central Asia and Central Europe respectively.

Uzbekistan is also interested in further development of interaction with Hungary within the European Union and ready to continue multilateral work on implementation of the EU Strategy for Central Asia on mutual respect and trust, UzA reported.

President Pal Schmitt underlined that Hungary considers Uzbekistan as important partner in the Central Asian region and acknowledges its growing role in global politics.

During the talks, Islam Karimov and Pal Schmitt considered current affairs and perspectives of the Uzbek-Hungarian cooperation and exchanged opinion on regional and international issues, including Afghanistan. The sides underlined that the countries have common view on discussed topics.

Bilateral talks were continued in expended structure with the participation of the official delegations. During the talks, the sides discussed issues of deepening trade-economic and investment cooperation.

Speaking about bilateral turnover, the sides noted that it grew by 38% in 2010. At the same time, they said the volume of trade between two sides does not meet economic opportunities of Uzbekistan and Hungary and can be sharply increased due to use of existing reserves and expanding nomenclature of goods.

It was underlined that the Uzbek side can supply cotton yarn and fabrics, ready textile garments, cable-wire products, rare and non-ferrous metals, chemical goods and other products.

After the talks, Presidents of two states signed a joint statement. The document said that the cooperation between two states is expanding and meets long-term national interests of two states.

The sides also expressed mutual intention to lift bilateral relations to new level through strengthening cooperation on wide-range directions, expanding contacts.

Uzbekistan and Hungary inked a package of bilateral documents in various areas. The sides agreement on economic cooperation, which envisages formation of intergovernmental commission, which will include representatives of state bodies and cover all areas of the Uzbek-Hungarian interaction in trade and investment.

According to protocol on cooperation of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan and Hungary, the sides will create favourable conditions for establishing direct contacts and exchange experience among diplomats.

The sides also inked documents on cooperation in oil and gas sector, standardization and certification, metrology. The Chamber of Commerce and Industries of two states also signed agreement on cooperation.