Uzbekistan has taken another big stride in its march toward membership in the World Trade Organization, a goal that it hopes to finalize ahead of the WTO ministerial meeting in the spring of 2026.

A bilateral agreement with the United States has been reached after 14 months of negotiations, according to Azizbek Urunov, Uzbekistan’s chief negotiator on WTO accession. Uzbekistan has now completed talks with 21 countries as it seeks to implement reforms and integrate more closely with the global economy, demonstrating considerable momentum toward WTO accession since no deals had been negotiated at the beginning of 2023.

“It has been an adventurous journey, tough but substantive negotiations,” Urunov said after the talks with American counterparts last week. Uzbekistan started the WTO accession process in 1994, several years after independence from the Soviet Union, and then dropped the effort a decade later. It resumed the campaign a few years ago.

Johanna Hill, deputy director-general of the WTO, said last month that Uzbekistan’s goal was to “reduce the number of outstanding bilateral negotiations to under 10 WTO Members by next year.”

Uzbekistan’s accession process; image: WTO

Uzbekistan is pursuing reforms in the role of state trading enterprises, exports restrictions and subsidies, technical barriers to trade and other areas, according to Hill.

“Uzbekistan has been one of the most active acceding governments of late. It has pushed ahead with economic reform, in the strategic region of Central Asia, with WTO accession very high on the government’s agenda,” she said. Hill cited a WTO report this year that says economies reforming their markets during WTO accession grew on average 1.5% more than economies that did not reform.

The WTO report maintains that trade and more global cooperation are critical to fostering equality and inclusivity, while acknowledging rising geopolitical tensions, measures to restrict trade, greater urgency surrounding the push for sustainability and other challenges.

Some analysts point to the WTO’s ministerial conference in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates earlier this year as a showcase for the troubles that the organization is facing.

“On the critical agenda items – agricultural trade, fisheries subsidies, and reform of the WTO’s dispute-settlement mechanism – ministers simply kicked the can down the road, undertaking to continue work and once more extend deadlines that few expect to be met,” wrote Evan Rogerson, an analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. His commentary on the meeting was among several presented by the Council of Councils, an international group of policy institutes.