Central Asian Leaders Optimistic About Expanding Regional Trade

A growing spirit of cooperation underpinned the August 9 gathering of the leaders of all five Central Asia states, along with Caspian neighbor Azerbaijan.

"Sustainable development" was the buzzword of the day for participants of the 6th Consultative Meeting of the Heads of State of Central Asia, held in the Kazakh capital Astana.

"We are jointly shaping a new image of Central Asia as a region of great opportunities, looking to the future," the gathering's host, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, told his fellow regional leaders. "Given the combined potential of our countries, we can make a significant contribution to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Agenda."

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev echoed those sentiments, asserting that "Central Asia is becoming a space of good-neighborliness, mutually beneficial cooperation and sustainable development."

The font of such cheerful rhetoric is a shared regional desire to expand trade, both within and across the region, connecting China and Western markets via the so-called Middle Corridor. Tokayev noted all Central Asian states - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - were removing trade barriers and modernizing border checkpoints to speed freight transit. "Trade, economic and investment cooperation is developing dynamically," he said.

A US-sponsored initiative, dubbed the B5+1 process, provides a framework for improving trade flows within the region. Most efforts to ease trade barriers have, to date, occurred on a bilateral, not regional level. There has been lots of talk about speeding commerce, but action to achieve that objective has been limited, and there is lots of work still to be done, experts and observers say. Agreements have been signed, but efficient implementation remains an open question.

The highest profile trade initiative in 2024 involves a "green power plan" by Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to export solar- and wind-generated electricity across the Caspian Sea to Western markets. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev participated in the meeting, emphasizing in his address to the assembly that "Azerbaijan and the countries of Central Asia are a single historical, cultural and geopolitical space of increasing strategic importance."

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the region's two largest economies, are taking the lead in promoting regional economic cooperation and integration. At a one-on-one meeting August 8 that preceded the Astana regional gathering, Tokayev and Mirziyoyev signed over a dozen documents and agreements, including several aimed at streamlining border controls and procedures, and boosting trade in the agricultural sector.

"The volume of trade in this [agricultural] sector reached $1.7 billion, which is about a third of the total trade volume," Tokayev noted in a statement released by the presidential press service. "Kazakhstan is interested in supplies of socially significant food products from Uzbekistan. In turn, we will continue to export flour, wheat and other products to our Uzbek partners."

The two leaders, who billed their meeting as the inaugural session of the Kazakh-Uzbek Supreme Interstate Council, set a target of doubling annual bilateral trade volume in the coming years to $10 billion. The bilateral council will work not only to improve trade systems, but also address environmental concerns that can have an outsized impact on economic development, in particular the "integrated and rational use of water resources of transboundary rivers."

By Eurasianet.org

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