Azernews.Az

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) contributes greatly to supporting the country's economic reforms and implementation of structural improvements in Uzbekistan, Uzbek President Islam Karimov said, while receiving ADB President Takehiko Nakao on November 21, the Uzbek news agency (UzA) reported.

Takehiko Nakao arrived in Uzbekistan for the sixth meeting of the Asia Solar Energy Forum.

During the meeting it was noted that cooperation between Uzbekistan and the ADB is strategic and long term.

Currently, one of the most promising areas of bilateral cooperation is the realization of ADB initiatives to develop solar energy in the Asian region. In particular, it envisages the construction in Asia in the coming years of solar power plants with the capacity of 3000 MW.

Under this initiative, Uzbekistan and the ADB started a project on construction of a solar photovoltaic power plant with the capacity of 100 MW in the Samarkand region which will be the first such station in the region.

The International Institute for Solar Energy was established jointly with ADB in Tashkent in 2013. In future this institute will generate new joint projects aimed at increasing the use of renewable energy sources not only in Uzbekistan, but also in other countries of the Asian continent.

The logical continuation of the growing cooperation between Uzbekistan and the ADB in this area became the fact that the sixth meeting of the Asia Solar Energy Forum has been held in Tashkent.

During the meeting the sides also exchanged opinions on deepening and expanding mutually beneficial bilateral cooperation in the long term, as well as joint interaction in the implementation of regional projects.

The current portfolio of cooperation between Uzbekistan and the ADB includes 40 projects worth $14.5 billion which involve ADB resources totaling more than $4.9 billion.