During his visit Erlan Idrissov had meetings with Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov and Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov.

The main agenda of Minister Idrissov in Tashkent was arrangement of visit of President Nursultan Nazarbayev to Uzbekistan. In the context of the forthcoming highest-level visit, the parties discussed issues of bilateral political cooperation and interaction in the areas of trade, economy, transport and logistics, as well as cooperation in the region of Central Asia and in the framework of international organizations.

President Islam Karimov emphasized that “Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have always been and will remain partners and allies” and highlighted necessity of further deepening of the bilateral integration in political, economic and humanitarian fields.

At the meeting with Abdulaziz Kamilov, the two ministers had a detailed discussion on the whole range of bilateral agenda and reviewed implementation of the agreements reached during Uzbekistan President Karimov’s visit to Astana last autumn.

The two ministers expressed their interest in further growth of bilateral economic cooperation in the areas of investment, business, transport and communications as well as in joint assistance to Afghanistan’s economic recovery.

The Republic of Uzbekistan is Kazakhstan’s strategic political and economic partner in Central Asia. The deep integration of two cultures is confirmed by statistics provided by Foreign Minister Kamilov, who emphasized that Uzbekistan is home to more than 900 thousand ethnic Kazakhs and there are 493 schools with Kazakh language lessons as well as 7 universities with Kazakh Language and Literature Faculties.

The trade turnover is also an important indicator: it reached US$2.16 billion in 2012 (including US$1.3 billion of export and US$817 million of import) which makes up to 10,8% year-to-year growth.