A meeting with the delegation headed by the Minister of Industry and Infrastructure Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Marat Karaboev, was held at the "Uzcharmsanoat" association. The purpose of the visit is to expand cooperation in existing directions in the leather-footwear industry and develop new projects in cooperation.

During the dialogue, the parties discussed the possibilities of establishing cooperation relations between the enterprises of the two countries in order to increase the export potential. Also, attention was paid to the implementation of new joint projects based on cooperation in small industrial zones located in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The projects are primarily focused on the production of finished products with high added value and ensuring the full chain of production.

For these purposes, the Kazakh side expressed its readiness to allocate loan funds with the interest rate of annual 3 percent for 7 years in national currency tenge for the construction and operation of new joint ventures.

The parties also discussed the possibilities of increasing the volume of shoe supplies from Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan. Last year alone, 7.8 million pairs of shoes worth $ 28 million were delivered from our country to the neighboring republic. The future plan is to further increase these numbers.

Multifaceted cooperation with the Republic of Kazakhstan includes the processing of raw materials and the establishment of production of high value-added goods. The Minister of Industry and Infrastructure Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan noted that despite the fact that the neighboring republic has a sufficiently large base of raw materials, today there is a lack of necessary capacities for the processing of cattle and ship skins, as well as wool.

In this way, it is proposed to thoroughly process the raw materials received from Kazakhstan in Uzbek enterprises, and produce finished products in cooperation.

In this regard, considerable experience has been accumulated in our country. There are about 60 leather processing enterprises in our republic alone, and more than 2 billion square meters of leather are produced in our country per year.

More than 500,000 tons of wool are processed annually. There is a possibility to further increase these indicators due to raw materials imported from Kazakhstan. Through these joint projects, the establishment of new production facilities are being planned. Products are jointly exported to CIS countries and European markets.