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BISHKEK (TCA) — Over the last year, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) facilitated more than $6 million in exports for local Kyrgyz businesses in the garment industry and agricultural sectors, the US Embassy in Kyrgyzstan said on March 1.
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TASHKENT (TCA) — Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev is to make his first visit to Tajikistan on March 9 and 10, in an effort to improve relations between the neighboring countries, Sputnik news agency reports.
Relations between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan were strained during the rule of Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan’s first post-independence president who ruled the country with an iron hand from 1991 until his death in September 2016, but that has begun to change since Mirziyoyev took office.
Since taking power in Tashkent in December 2016, Mirziyoyev has positioned himself as a reformer — including improving Uzbekistan’s frosty relations with its neighbors. He has visited Kyrgyzstan once, Turkmenistan thrice, and Kazakhstan four times in just over a year in office.
Karimov traveled to Dushanbe only twice in his quarter-century-long presidency: once in 2008 and once in 2014, both times as part of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) multinational summits. No such qualification is attached to Mirziyoyev’s visit, making it a historic moment in the two countries’ relations.
From 2010 until 2017, only two of the 16 checkpoints that allowed crossing between the two countries were open. On March 1, Tashkent announced the reopening of nine checkpoints.
Tashkent has resumed direct flights to Tajikistan for the first time since 1992. Uzbekistan may also abolish a toll on freight trucks and buses from Tajikistan entering the country, according to Asia Plus. They previously abolished a similar fee on rail freight.
The warming relationship between the two countries resulted in the fact that bilateral trade in 2017 was $236.8 million, more than 20 percent higher than in the previous year.
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TASHKENT (TCA) — Micro, small and medium-sized private businesses in Uzbekistan will now benefit from a new Regional Small Business Programme (RSBP) launched in Tashkent on March 1, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) reported.
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BISHKEK (TCA) — As tuberculosis (TB) remains a public health concern in the Eastern European and Central Asian regions, a regional symposium being held on 1 and 2 March in Bishkek will tackle recent new approaches to treatment and urge for scale-up of new drugs and diagnostic tools. Hosted by the Ministry of Health of Kyrgyzstan and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the symposium brought together around 160 participants from the region, MSF reported.
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BISHKEK (TCA) — Representatives of the European Union and Kyrgyzstan met in Bishkek to discuss their cooperation in a number of areas. Meetings that were part of the regular political dialogue took place in two formats: Sub-Committee for Development Cooperation and Sub-Committee for Trade and Investment, the Delegation of the European Union to the Kyrgyz Republic said on March 1.
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BISHKEK (TCA) — The United States has arrested the son of a former Kyrgyz ambassador to Washington on charges including firearms trafficking and smuggling, RFE/RL reports.
