Uzbekistan and the European Union initialed the Agreement on Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation. It will replace the current Partnership and Cooperation Agreement of 1996 and, as the parties expect, will bring cooperation to a new level.
On July 6, the ceremony of initialing the Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (EPCA) between Uzbekistan and the European Union was held in Brussels.
The new agreement is intended to replace the current Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) of 1996 and bring bilateral cooperation to a qualitatively new level, the press service of the Ministry of Investment and Foreign Trade of Uzbekistan reported.
The EU statement says that the EPCA will provide “a new, modern and ambitious framework to intensify the partnership.” “The agreement includes new areas of cooperation and significantly modernizes the regulatory framework for trade and economic relations,” the message says.
Negotiations on the draft EPCA were launched in February 2019 and completed at the end of June 2022. During this period, 10 rounds of negotiations and more than 150 meetings were held – both at the level of experts, chief negotiators, and members of the government.
As the MIFT noted, the current agreement mainly contains provisions on political dialogue, cooperation in the areas of democracy, human rights, promotion of cultural ties, financial and technical cooperation, investment, trade in goods and services, as well as protection of intellectual property.
The EPCA covers a wider range of issues. These include provisions related to trade and related issues, including customs administration, technical regulation, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, competition, dispute resolution and other areas.
In addition, the range of interaction in the areas of investment cooperation, trade in goods, services and intellectual property has been expanded by including the fundamental rules of the World Trade Organization.
The EPCA includes such new areas as foreign policy, security, conflict prevention and crisis management, personal data protection, asylum and border management, combating illegal migration, organized crime and corruption, countering terrorism.
“The agreement is no longer a framework agreement, but creates a full-fledged mechanism for comprehensive interaction between Uzbekistan and the EU, including in the field of trade and economic cooperation,” the MIFT noted.
It is expected that the EPCA will contribute to “further integration of Uzbekistan into the multilateral trading system, strengthening the mechanisms of a market economy, increasing confidence and interest in the country of foreign investors and business circles, and also opening up new opportunities for domestic producers for trade cooperation with partners from the EU countries.”
The EPCA will be signed and will enter into force after completion of the necessary legal procedures.
On the same day, the 18th annual meeting of the Cooperation Committee between Uzbekistan and the EU was held. The parties considered the development of bilateral relations.
According to the MIFT, in the first five months of this year, trade between Uzbekistan and EU countries increased by 22%, while exports from Uzbekistan increased by 86%. Among the categories of goods that showed the greatest growth are chemical products (growth by 6 times), textiles (growth by 90%) and food products (growth by 65%). This was largely achieved due to the acquisition by Uzbekistan in 2021 of the status of a beneficiary of the EU’s Generalized System of Preferences “GSP +”, the message says.
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