Uzbekistan signs huge deals with China, Russia

• Uzbekistan signs deals worth $16 billion with China and $4.6 billion with Russia.
• Deals include the construction of a railway connecting China, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.
• Documents were signed in Samarkand, the Uzbek Silk Road city.

Uzbekistan signed deals worth $16 billion with China and $4.6 billion with Russia, according to the Uzbek Foreign Ministry on Friday, During their respective leaders’ visits to the Central Asian nation for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit.

Deals with China include the construction of a railway connecting China, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, while projects with Russia include machinery, chemicals, petrochemicals, and geology, according to ministry spokesman Yusuf Kabuljanov.

Russia and China are major investors in Uzbekistan, as well as key trade partners for the former Soviet republic.

They also lead the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional organization that met this week in Samarkand, the Uzbek Silk Road city.

The three governments signed the agreement on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan on September 14.

The document does not lay out a timetable for building the CKU link, which was first proposed a quarter-century ago but had stalled until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine gave it new impetus.

However, it brings the project one step closer to completion by establishing terms for a feasibility study for the Kyrgyz leg, which is the missing link connecting existing railroads in China and Uzbekistan, to be completed by the first half of 2023.

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