Media Center

News Release

ADB Vice-President Visiting Uzbekistan

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (2 July 2007) - ADB Vice President Liqun Jin arrived in Tashkent on 30 June 2007 on a four-day visit.

During his visit, Mr. Jin will speak and participate in the opening ceremony of the Round Table Meeting of the Arab Coordination Group, which will be held during 3-5 June 2007 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The Arab Coordination Group comprises the Islamic Development Bank, Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, OPEC Fund for International Development, Saudi Fund for Development, Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, Kuwaiti Fund for Arab Economic Development and Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa.

ADB has a good partnership with the Islamic Development Bank through its Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Program. It seeks to further enhance its cooperation with Arab financial institutions involved in development assistance to ADB's developing member countries and the round table in Uzbekistan serves as a good platform for strengthening such partnership.

During his visit Mr. Jin will also meet Deputy Prime Minister Rustam Azimov, ADB Governor for Uzbekistan Saidakhmad Rakhimov and other senior government officials. He already met with Minister of Foreign Economic Relations, Investments and Trade Elyor Ganiev on 30 June.

Discussions mainly focus on the development results sought by the Government, to which ADB could contribute, implementation of Uzbekistan's reform and development agenda and ADB's role in the Government's efforts to improve the welfare of the people of Uzbekistan.

"Uzbekistan is an important member of ADB," said Mr. Jin. "Uzbekistan and ADB will enhance their cooperation aiming at sustaining country's recent strong economic growth to achieve stronger poverty reduction."

On 1 July Mr. Jin also undertook field visit to the ADB-supported project on railways modernization in Samarkand and met authorities of the Samarkand region to get a first-hand perspective on the impact of ADB assistance on country's infrastructure development.

This is the third high-level visit from ADB in 2007, demonstrating ADB's strong commitment to strengthen assistance to Uzbekistan in its development.

Mr. Jin's was appointed as ADB's Vice-President (Operations 1) on 1 August 2003. Prior to joining ADB, Mr. Jin was Vice Minister of Finance of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Alternate Governor for PRC at the World Bank.

Uzbekistan joined ADB in 1995. As of now cumulative lending to Uzbekistan has reached $974.90 million equivalent for 23 loans. Education projects accounted for the largest share of lending (27%), followed by agriculture and natural resources (25%), and transport and communication (19%). In addition, ADB has provided 67 technical assistance grants to Uzbekistan, totaling $34 million.

Contacts