With a favorable geographic location, Uzbekistan is a key hub of China-Central Asia-West Asia Economic Corridor and an important participant to build the B&R in Central Asia. In recent years, bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Uzbekistan has been deepening and new achievements in interconnection, capacity cooperation, facilitation of economic and trade, and exchanges in cultures and educations have been made. At the invitation of KARIMOVA, Former First Lady of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Baige ZHAO, Chair of Advisory Committee of RDI, led a delegation to visit Uzbekistan from May 24^th to May 27^th, 2019.

Tursunali KUZIEV, Deputy Director of the Presidential Office and Former Minister of Culture and Sports of the Republic of Uzbekistan and Svetla INAMOVA, Chairman of Sog'lom Avlod Uchun welcomed the delegation led by Baige ZHAO at the airport

Tatyana KARIMOVA, Former First Lady of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Tursunali KUZIEV, Former Minister of Culture and Sports of the Republic of Uzbekistan, and Svetla INAMOVA, Chairman of  Foundation Sog'lom Avlod Uchun, warmly welcomed the delegation led by Baige ZHAO.

Baige ZHAO presents the RDI Think Tank Report (2018) to KARIMOVA, Former First Lady of the Republic of Uzbekistan

KARIMOVA personally accompanied Baige ZHAO to visit the residence, photo exhibition and library of the former President, after which, she presented ZHAO with books written by Islam Abduganiyevich KARIMOV, Former President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, and ZHAO presented Report on BRI Progress (2018) and RDI Annual Report (2018) to her in return.

Accompanied by KARIMOVA, Former First Lady of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Baige ZHAO visits the Photo Exhibition of KARIMOV, Former President of the Republic of Uzbekistan together with Xiaoquan WANG, Deputy Director of the Research Center of Belt and Road Studies of CASS, and Secretary-General of Chinese Association of Russian, Eastern European & Central Asian Studies of CASS

ZHAO said that President KARIMOV, Founder and Outstanding Leader of the Republic of Uzbekistan, was a close friend of the Chinese people and the founder and promoter of China-Uzbekistan relations. In 2013, President Xi visited countries in Central Asia and proposed the significant initiative of Silk Road Economic Belt, which was immediately and positively responded by President KARIMOV. He said that Uzbekistan was willing to actively participate in the construction of Silk Road Economic Belt to promote economic and trade exchanges and connectivity and link Uzbekistan's development more closely with China's prosperity. At present, under the leadership of President Shavkat MIRZIYOYEV, Uzbekistan has entered a new stage of development with the largest-scale domestic reform and opening-up since its independence, relieving social problems such as unemployment and poverty, improving domestic business environment, opening the market more widely, and enhancing international influence significantly.

KARIMOVA, Former First lady of the Republic of Uzbekistan, and Baige ZHAO together with the locals

ZHAO said that Uzbekistan is the key to the B&R construction.  Realizing national development and rejuvenation are the shared dream of the Chinese and Ukrainian people. Under this circumstance, the mission entrusted to us by history is to inherit President KARIMOV's dream, establish a B&R cooperation network with mutual benefits, a new B&R cooperation model, a diversified B&R cooperation platform, and build the Silk Road of Peace, Silk Road of Innovation, Silk Road of Green Development and Silk Road of Health Cooperation. At present, Uzbekistan's elites do not know much about China and have limited experience in carrying out China-Uzbekistan cooperation. In view of this reality, BRI International Think Tank of CASS and RDI should build a bridge for more understanding between the two nations and jointly launch China-Uzbekistan Jointly Building B&R International High-level Seminar together with the Institute of Russian, Eastern European & Central Asian Studies of CASS, so as to deepen the bilateral cooperation in various fields, create a favorable environment for people-to-people and cultural exchanges and further consolidate the foundation of bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership. KARIMOVA highly agreed with Baige ZHAO's proposal and hoped to become a promoter of China-Uzbekistan friendly cooperation.

Baige ZHAO has a meeting with Yan JIANG, Ambassador of China to Uzbekistan

During her visit to Uzbekistan, ZHAO also met with Yan JIANG, Ambassador of China to Uzbekistan. ZHAO told JIANG that thanks to the efforts of Ms. Hongping ZHANG, Chairman of Xinjiang Asia-Europe International Material Trade Center Co., Ltd. on the RDI platform and Director of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Uzbekistan, "Marching to the Bright Road," that is, the B&R Eye-care Activity have been held twice in Uzbekistan to provide free rehabilitation surgery for 200 cataract patients there. This activity was carried out under the loving support of entrepreneurs on the RDI platform, playing an important role in consolidating the favorable public opinion foundation and people-to-people bonds between the two countries. JIANG said that she was very grateful to RDI for its contributions to promoting the people-to-people bonds between the two countries. In the past two years, Uzbekistan has issued a series of laws and regulations aimed at developing science and technology, encouraging innovation, and strengthening talent cultivation and introduction, strove to give full play to the role of scientific and technological innovation in government's administration, urban construction, development of economy, education and agriculture and so on, and made every effort to enhance the strength of scientific and technological innovation. It is expected that RDI will actively introduce more outstanding enterprises with scientific and technological innovation as well as new science and technology into Uzbekistan, and strengthen the exchanges on human resources between China and Uzbekistan through policy communication, elite training and in-depth investigation.

Finally, the delegation investigated Xinjiang Asia-Europe International Material Trade Center Co., Ltd., a RDI platform enterprise. It has established China's first e-commerce trading center targeting Central Asia in Uzbekistan. Starting from establishing the China Trading Center of Uzbekistan National Exchange, it has gradually developed into one integrating services such as international cross-border spot auction of raw materials, wholesale and retail of domestic commodities with Xinjiang characteristics, and port public logistics management information service.

ZHAO hoped that Asia-Europe International Material Trade Center Co., Ltd. would actively promote China-Uzbekistan cooperation to optimize a package of comprehensive services, including cross-border transactions, cross-border credit investigation, cross-border logistics, cross-border supply chain management and cross-border supply chain finance for domestic and foreign small- and medium-sized enterprises, thus achieving the goal of high-standard, people-centered and sustainable development of the B&R.