The Foreign Minister B.Battsetseg submitted the draft of the bill on Opening an Embassy in Tashkent, capital city of the Republic of Uzbekistan, to the Chairman of the State Great Hural Mr. G.Zandanshatar on 9 January 2024.
Uzbekistan with the population of around 35 million people is one of the biggest markets of Central Asia as well as one of the leading agriculture and light industry hubs in the region. In this regard, Mongolia has a great potential to cooperate with Uzbekistan in increasing and diversifying food products that meets the requirements of Mongolia’s food security norms and objectives, and introduce products of domestic producers to the Central Asian region market, enhance economic cooperation and increase trade turnover and export its meat and meat products to Uzbekistan.
Compared to the other CIS countries in Central Asia, Uzbekistan does not border with our two neighbors and has a good political reputation in the region that strives to conduct an independent foreign policy and is not a member of neither CSTO nor Eurasian Economic Union.
Presently, Embassies of 44 countries, 2 Consulate Generals and 18 international agencies are operating in Uzbekistan.
In recent years, the Government of Uzbekistan has implemented comprehensive reforms encompassing many sectors. For instance, Uzbekistan became an observer state of the Eurasian Economic Union in 2023 and also submitted its request to join the WTO.
The bilateral trade turnover has been steadily increasing over the years and in 2022 reached 10.4 million USD. The two Chambers of Trade and Industry organized a Mongolia-Uzbekistan business forum in 2022 in Tashkent.
The Minister noted that it is important to work closely with the country, that is influential in the region and committed to neutrality, to further broaden the bilateral cooperation and there are plans to conclude Government agreements and MoUs to strengthen the bilateral legal framework.
Considering these factors, there is a substantial need to open an Embassy in Tashkent, and thus, the proposal of opening an Embassy was discussed at the Cabinet Meeting held on 6 September 2023 as well as the Meeting of the Standing Committee on Security and Foreign Policy on 10 October 2023. As both meetings supported the proposal, the Uzbek side was approached through diplomatic channels and they also supported the proposal.
The draft of the bill was co-authored by the Foreign Minister, Finance Minister and Minister of Justice and Internal Affairs. If approved, the Embassy will have a vacancy of 3 staff and the related expenses are already included in the 2024 state budget.