ADB team visits Uzbekistan, positive about reforms

The thoroughly chosen path of development and sustainable growth of people's social welfare in the country has been fruitful and is giving the long-awaited results. Under the close and careful management on the side of the Government, the subsequent realization of a very wide range of national programs and nationwide deeds brought into the reality due to the current national priorities put forward by the President of the country, the extend of improvements have been noteworthy.

These and other factors concerning the country's performance both economically and financially have drawn the attention of talks that took place within the visit of a team of Board of Directors from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) who arrived in Uzbekistan with a five-day visit.

The team lead by Patrick Pillon, Executive Director for Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland met with with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Rustam Azimov, ADB Governor Saidakhmad Rakhimov and other senior government officials where they had an opportunity to exchange views with them on various questions with regards to the further development of cooperation and prospects of bilateral relations with Uzbekistan, the key state in the region.

The team also took a field visit to a few project sites, including Ak-Altin Agriculture Development Project in Syrdarya region, Senior Secondary Education Project in Samarkand, Second Textbook Development Project and Information Communication Technology in Basic Education Project in Bukhara. During the talks with local authorities that passed in a friendly and business manner, the members of the team highly evaluated the scale of improvements and an outstanding level of development of activities in line with the said projects and expressed their hope for their further growth and flourishing.

Within the visit the team met with the representatives of major development partners, as well as the representatives from both local and international private sector and nongovernmental organizations in the course of which the sides exchanged views on climate for private sector operations and social development.