ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev on Friday urged businesspersons from both countries to help the two countries achieve a bilateral trade target of $2 billion within the next five years.
The two leaders made the call while addressing traders, industrialists from both countries at the Pakistan Uzbekistan Business Forum in Islamabad during President Mirziyoyev’s visit to the South Asian country.
Pakistan and Uzbekistan have steadily increased economic ties in recent years as Pakistan offers landlocked Central Asian states greater access to global markets, aiming to position itself as a regional transit hub.
Pakistan was the first Central Asian partner with which Uzbekistan signed a bilateral Transit Trade Agreement, along with a Preferential Trade Agreement in March 2022, covering 17 items, which became operational in 2023.
“We agreed that political goodwill must be matched by economic actions and words must be converted into implementation,” Sharif said, citing his visit to Tashkent last year which had helped brought annual bilateral trade to nearly $450 million.
