On 14 March 2023, the World Trade Organization (WTO) informed that Uzbekistan had underlined its commitment to making rapid progress in its WTO accession talks as part of an overall programme to implement large-scale reforms of its trade and economic regimes. At the sixth meeting of the Working Party on the Accession of Uzbekistan, WTO members expressed their support for Uzbekistan’s ambition to secure WTO membership while underlying the importance of bringing its trade regime into full conformity with WTO requirements.
For the next steps, on the bilateral front, Uzbekistan and WTO members were urged to step up their technical engagement to register concrete progress in the coming months and to start concluding negotiations where possible. WTO members asked Uzbekistan to share as soon as possible its revised market access offers on goods and services, and to provide its applied tariff rates in one of the official languages of the WTO.
On the multilateral front, the Chair noted that there was now a basis to give consideration to upgrading the Factual Summary of Points Raised to an “Elements of a draft Report of the Working Party”, on condition that further inputs from Tashkent kept reflecting Uzbekistan's readiness to make its foreign trade regime conform to WTO rules. In addition, Uzbekistan was requested to update other supporting documents, especially its Agriculture Supporting Tables for a more recent reference period.
Regarding legislation, Uzbekistan was asked to revise its Legislative Action Plan and provide to the Working Party copies of enacted and draft trade-related legislation.
The WTO Chair left open the date for the next Working Party meeting but hoped it could take place before the WTO's August 2023 break, subject to the timely submission of all the negotiating inputs by Tashkent and progress in the bilateral market access negotiations.