A meeting was held with Mark Pierce, Assistant Secretary of South and Central Asia Branch of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan on 12 April 2012.

The parties discussed the current state of affairs and perspectives of bilateral cooperation and exchanged views on significant international and regional issues.

On the same day the second round of political consultations was held between the foreign ministries, during which mutual interest in enhancing comprehensive cooperation was expressed.

A particular attention was paid to development of trade-economic and investment cooperation, particularly in attracting modern Australian technologies and experience in agricultural sphere, energy-saving technologies, equipment manufacturing for machine-building and mining industries, automaking as well as in perspective projects of the “Navoi” free industrial economic zone.

Currently 10 enterprises with Australian capital are operating in Uzbekistan, in 2011 the representative office of “Rio Tinto” and the engineering center of “Worley Parsons” were opened.

The sides noted that further intensification of inter-parliamentary contacts, cooperation in cultural-humanitarian spheres, tourism, education and scientific research issues serves to raise Uzbek-Australian bilateral and multilateral relations to a qualitatively new level. (Source: Ïðåññ-ñëóæáà ÌÈÄ ÐÓ)