The 2024 Annual Meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund — Uzbekistan’s path to WTO accession: Navigating reforms and global integration

Your Excellencies,
Deputy Prime Minister Khodjaev,
Vice-President Bassani,
Ambassador Tai, (TBC)
Distinguished participants,

Let me start by first thanking you for organizing this meeting and for inviting the WTO to address the status of Uzbekistan's accession to the WTO. Accession to the WTO is a subject close to the Director General's heart. She has at numerous occasions indicated her strong support for Uzbekistan's accession to the WTO, and so I am particularly pleased to be speaking to you today on this issue.

Although Uzbekistan's Working Party on Accession to the WTO was established as far back as in 1994, there was a gap of about 15 years before negotiations were resumed recently in 2020. Since then, the process has accelerated, both bilaterally and on the multilateral front.

This is in great part due to the active political engagement of President Mirziyoyev who has taken a keen interest in ensuring that recent economic reforms have focused both on integrating Uzbekistan more closely with its immediate region and more widely with the international community.

Among these, a key piece of legislation, which no doubt will be discussed further today, is Presidential Decree 85 of 3 June this year. The Decree, in one fell swoop, addressed several issues of concern to WTO Members such as State trading enterprises and enterprises with exclusive rights, export restrictions and export subsidies. PD-85 has provided the momentum to continue and even accelerate economic reforms in areas such as export restrictions and the harmonization of excise duties. Uzbekistan, under the very able guidance of Deputy Prime Minister Khodjaev and Chief Negotiator Mr Urunov, also continues to undertake reforms in other key areas, notably to update procedures related to technical barriers to trade (TBT) and sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS), another area of concern for WTO Members. Reforms on trade facilitation had also been brought forward with most objectives in Uzbekistan's Trade Facilitation Action Plan being implemented ahead of time. With regard to agriculture, good progress was also made during an informal meeting on agricultural support in Geneva just last month. It is good to see that technical work to update regulations and procedures is keeping up with economic and political ambitions.

Bilaterally also, Uzbekistan has stepped up its engagement with WTO Members and concluded a number of bilateral agreements over the last few years. Earlier this year Uzbekistan signed a couple of bilateral agreements at the WTO and my understanding is a further 4-5 may be signed before the end of the year, with the goal being to reduce the number of outstanding bilateral negotiations to under 10 WTO Members by next year.

Since the resumption of the accession process, successive cycles of Working Party meetings have shown continued engagement with WTO Members. Going forward, we will hold the 9th meeting of the Working Party in December for which documents have already been circulated to WTO Members.

From the Secretariat's perspective, Uzbekistan has been one of the most active acceding governments of late. It has pushed ahead with economic reform, in the strategic region of Central Asia, with WTO accession very high on the government's agenda. Reforms associated with the accession process play an important role in the future growth of the acceding country. Recent research by the WTO in the World Trade Report for 2024 found that economies that reform their markets during the WTO accession process grew on average 1.5 percentage points more than economies that did not reform; reforming economies moreover continued to grow faster after accession to the WTO, with greater diversification in their trade and stability in export growth. Other factors that have boosted trade include the predictability of trade policy which comes with meeting WTO commitments, and good governance.

As Ambassador Aitzhan from Kazakhstan and Mr Dang from Viet Nam are both here with us today, it would be remiss of me to not note the special role played by recently acceded WTO Members in supporting accessions. From a regional perspective especially, Kazakhstan has shared its accession experience with other acceding countries in the region, most recently at a training course on market access in goods for acceding Governments in Geneva. We, at the WTO, are very grateful to recently acceded Members for showing leadership and sharing lessons learned with other acceding governments.

Finally, let me also take this opportunity to thank the many other partners present today – the United States, the European Union, the IMF and the World Bank – who have been instrumental in advising and supporting Uzbekistan in its journey to WTO accession. The role you play is so important in helping Uzbekistan advance its economic reforms and once again I would like to thank you for your support.

Thank you for listening. I look forward to an excellent discussion this morning and continued momentum in Uzbekistan's accession to the WTO.