India, Uzbekistan strike long-term uranium deal

Tashkent: India and Uzbekistan on Sunday decided to elevate their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership and set a target of $5 billion in annual trade by 2030 following talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

The two sides inked 11 agreements for boosting engagement in several key sectors, including mining and tourism and agreed to establish a framework for long-term supply of Uranium from Uzbekistan to India in line with cooperation in the civil-nuclear energy sector.

The Modi-Mirziyoyev talks focused on expanding cooperation in areas of trade, investment, infrastructure, critical minerals, mining, defence and security, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, health, information technology, digital public infrastructure, including UPI and education.

The two sides also set a target of USD 5 billion in annual bilateral trade by 2030, Modi said in his press statement. The current volume of bilateral trade between the two nations is over USD 1 billion. 

Both the leaders announced elevating the India-Uzbekistan strategic ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, reflecting the growing depth and expanding scope of cooperation. Modi and Mirziyoyev witnessed the exchange of agreements covering a wide range of areas such as mining, culture, education, tourism, ayurveda, among others. “Uzbekistan is at the heart of Central Asia and is at the heart of India’s engagement in the region,” Modi said.

The Prime Minister added: “A stronger India-Uzbekistan partnership will be a powerful force for peace, progress and prosperity in Central Asia.” Delving into the ambitious agenda of future cooperation between the two sides, Modi said India and Uzbekistan will encourage their defence industries to look at co-development and co-production of military hardware. On trade and investment, he said issues relating to market access, banking, payment systems and connectivity will be addressed in a structured way.

“The close defence and security cooperation between our two countries reflects our deep mutual trust. In the future, we will promote direct linkages, co-production, and co-development between our defence industries,” Modi said. “We believe that terrorism, extremism, and separatism pose serious challenges to the entire region.” “Maintaining a policy of zero tolerance against these threats has been, and will continue to be, our shared resolve,” he added.