OREANDA-NEWS. August 12, 2010. President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov met with Katsuya Okada, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan, at Oqsaroy.

Welcoming the guest, the head of our nation expressed satisfaction with the current state and the level of Uzbek-Japanese relations in various spheres.

“The extent and nature of our present-day interaction has been advancing in the spirit of the 2002 Joint Statement on Friendship, Strategic Partnership and Cooperation, and conforms to the role played today by Japan in the economic and political development of the contemporary world”, Islam Karimov stressed.

Japan has been one of Uzbekistan’s oldest and time-tested partners. The volume of investments in our republic’s economy has exceeded 2.3 billion US dollars. The 2009 Intergovernmental Agreement on Liberalization, Mutual Protection and Promotion of Investments, has proved a new impetus for boosting Japanese big capital’s business dynamism in the Uzbek market. For instance, Mitsubishi Corporation participates in the renovation of a range of enterprises in our chemical industry, while specialists of Uzavtosanoat automotive association have been introducing new models of cars at SamAuto plant in partnership with Itochu, a Japanese automotive group. Mitsui Corp. has been active in the development of Navoi Free Industrial Economic Zone and multimodal center of logistics. In addition, joint projects in high-tech area have been under way with Sumitomo company.

While attending the 43rd annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank, the leadership of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) signed a new deal with the government of Uzbekistan worth 300 million US dollars to modernize Talimarjon heat power plant in Kashkadarya region. It has been a testament to the robustness of mutual relations built between Japan and Uzbekistan.

The Dialogue “Central Asia + Japan” is set up as an effect of multilateral efforts aimed at facilitating the endurance of peace and stability in the region. The latest round of consultations among foreign ministers of participating nations in the Dialogue has been held in Tashkent these days, where cooperation issues in political, economic, cultural and humanitarian areas have been discussed.

During the meeting at Oqsaroy, Katsuya Okada expressed his sincere gratitude to the head of our state for the warm welcome, and highly appraised Uzbekistan’s thoroughly balanced and constructive foreign policy pursued consistently by the leadership of Uzbekistan and directed at ensuring regional security.

Prospects of bolstering the bilateral cooperation and other topics of common interest have been conferred at the event.