Quality Alchemist (品質煉金術師): Silk Road Seminar on the New Stage Developments in Uzbekistan

2018年1月10日星期三

Silk Road Seminar on the New Stage Developments in Uzbekistan

Silk Road Economic Development Research Center (SREDRC), One Belt One Road Research Institute (OBORRI) of Chu Hai College and Institute for Entrepreneurship (IfE), The Hong Kong Polytechnic University co-organized the seminar on the New Stage Developments in Uzbekistan on 10^th Jan 2018. Uzbekistan has more than half of population in the Central Asia and thus has great potentials under the new economic reform and open door policy of the new President starting in late 2016. It is not only aspiring to the geo-economic hub in the Central Asia because of its oil and gas and great agricultural resources; it has been considered to be the coming geostrategic hub of the Central and of the Eurasian landmass as a whole. This seminar introduced their economic revitalization that opens the window to Uzbekistan and to the Central Asia. I took a photo with Dr CHAN Man Hung, Thomas (Director, One Belt One Road Research Institute) for memory.

I made a new Kazakhstan friend - Mr. Iskander Baitassov who is the Consul of the Consulate General of the Republic of Kazakhstan in Hong Kong and Macau.

The first keynote speaker was Mr. Vladimir Norov (Director of the Institute for Strategic and Interregional Studies under the President of Uzbekistan, formerly Minister of Foreign Affairs and State Advisor to the President, Republic of Uzbekistan) and his topic named “The New Development Plans of Uzbekistan in the New Era”. In the beginning, Mr. Norov introduced the history of Uzbekistan. The founding of the Silk Road historians referred to the II century B.C. when Chinese ambassador Zhang Qian (張騫) visited the countries of Central Asia with a diplomatic mission. Then he briefed some goods of trade included Davani horses of Ferghana and Velvet.

Uzbekistan has 32.5 million people, 130 nationalities living in peace and harmony, with 2200 registered religious organizations. Uzbekistan has enormous potential of its natural resources, locates in an important geographical location in the centre of Eurasia with open and liberal economic policy. Their first president developed a program with five principles ensuring economy’s self-sufficiency and reducing dependence on external imports of finished products. Good results were showed in the following diagram from 2000 to 2013.

Then Mr. Norov briefed some programs such as auto factories, oil refinery, gas chemical complex, soda plant, railway, textile, etc. One of the main goals of the “Strategy of Actions (2017-2021)” is to become competitive in the world arena in the field of science, intellectual potential, staff training and high technologies.

Strategy of Actions had five key items were showed as follows:

i. Improving the state and public construction system

ii. Ensuring the rule of law and further reform of the judicial system

iii. Development and liberalization of the economy

iv. Development of the Social sphere

v. Ensuring the security, inter-ethnic harmony and religious tolerance, implementation of balanced, mutually beneficial and constructive foreign policy

In December 2017, the President Sh. Mirziyoyev outlined the priorities and stressed Uzbekistan moving to the path of innovative development and 2018 was named the “Year of Supporting of Active Business, Innovative Ideas and Technologies”.

Three main principles of foreign policy of Uzbekistan was mentioned as following diagram.

Finally, he mentioned some cooperation in OBOR such as “Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan-China” railway. “The first state visit of the President of Uzbekistan Sh. Mirziyoyev to China in May 12-15, 2017 was the most productive” said by Mr. Norov. Their President also participated in the International Forum “One Belt, One Road” from 14-15 May 2017 in Beijing.

At the end, Mr. Norov stated the interaction with leading research and academic institutions of China (including Tsinghua University, Shanghai Academy of International Studies, etc.) since 2012.

The second speaker was Mr. Oybek Khamraev (Head of Department, The State Investments Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan) and his presentation entitled “This is the Right Time to Invest in Uzbekistan”. Firstly, he briefed the main facts of Uzbekistan including 448,000km² total are, 32 million total population (where 76 people per km²) and languages spoken in Uzbek, Russian and English.

Mr. Khamraey mentioned Uzbekistan was an attractive investment destination because of supportive business climate and growing diversified economy. Action strategy for 2017-2021 stated 5 priorities in which Economic development and liberation had several key areas would be focused. It included stable foreign exchange rate, modernization, technology development, tax system, etc.

Comparison of World Bank doing business ranking from 2012 and 2017, Uzbekistan ranking was from 166 increased to 74. He said they eliminated 160 licensing procedures and 19 administrative activities in recent years.

Then Mr. Khamraey said the increasing of China-Uzbekistan cooperation in different industries. There were involved many projects such as CNODC State Development Bank of China, Oil production, Gas Condensate Field, etc. One company related to Hong Kong named “Hong Kong ZRSC Technology” and they related to produce ceramic tiles and sanitary ceramics.

There were several industry sessions had investment opportunities included Tourism, Food and Food Processing, Textile Industry, Construction Materials, Pharmaceutical Industry and Chemical Industry. Companies with Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) included Coca-Cola, CAT, KPMG, LG, UMS, ZTE, HUAWEI, GM, LOTTE, etc.

Finally, Mr. Khamraey briefed the investment process from Ideate to Select, to Design and Execute and then to Operate. Their state investment committee would help investors along this way.

The last speaker was Dr. Thomas Chan (Director, One Belt One Road Research Institute, Chu Hai College) and this presentation was “From Uzbekistan to Central Asia and the Belt and Road Initiative”. He said the historical silk road(s) with many branching routes, but the centre of Eurasian connectivity had always been in the Central Asia and in particular in Uzbekistan.

Central Asia was the hub of the ancient Silk Road said by Dr. Chan. After the end of the Cold War, it provided chances for relinking Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) plans for the Eurasian connections in the 1990s. 11 CAREC Countries included Afghanistan, Azerbaijan China, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Monoglia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, & Uzbekistan.

After that Dr. Chan introduced 6 transport corridors of CAREC below:

Corridor 1 –Europe to East Asia through Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

Corridor 2 – Mediterranean to East Asia

Corridor 3 – Russian Federation to Middle East and South Asia through Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan & Uzbekistan

Corridor 4 – Russian Federation to East Asia via Karachi, Gwadar and Bandar Abbas ports

Corridor 5 – East Asia to Middle East and South Asia through China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikhstan and Afghanistan

Corridor 6 – Europe and Russia to the Middle East and South Asia via Karachi, Gwadar, and Bandar Abbas ports

At the end, Dr. Chan briefed the role of Hong Kong. He said Hong Kong could be serve as the overseas headquarter for Uzbekistan and Central Asia countries and become the platform for investors. Hong Kong needs to improve connectivity with Uzbekistan and Central Asia such as direct flights. Moreover, our education exchanges should be increased.

Institute for Strategic and Interregional Studies under the President of Uzbekistan and One Belt One Road Research Institute, Chu Hai College signed the MOU for cooperation.

In the interactive session, Dr. Alwin Wong (Director of the Institute for Entrepreneurship, PolyU) gave an opening remark. Mr. Joseph Chan (Chairman of the Silk Road Economic Development Research Center) (Left) encouraged young people to work in Centre Asia and learnt Russian language.

My questions were i) VISA application and ii) Currency exchange. I met that problem when I visited Uzbekistan in 2012. Since I was invited to be one of keynote speakers, the organizer arranged all matters for me. If I visited by myself, I would meet those problems. Mr. Norov said it had changed a lot from 2012 to 2018 and they used e-VISA application now.

Many participants asked questions and we had a good discussion afternoon.

I would like to share the sculpture of “Alisher Navoiy” that I brought in Uzbekistan airport in 2012 (~HK$500). Alisher Navoiy (1441-1501) is an ingenious poet and the thinker, the musician and the artist, the teacher and the scientist, a great statesman and one of the most cultural persons of this time.