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Strengthening international cooperation in the fight against pandemic considered
2020-04-18 | Politics
On April 17, President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev held a meeting on the issues of strengthening cooperation with international financial institutions in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
This year, it is planned to use 2.7 billion USD allocated by international and foreign financial structures. Most of these funds are accounted for Asian Development Bank, World Bank and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
Existing projects are optimized based on the current situation and funds are directed primarily to medical sphere. International organizations are ready to help Uzbekistan.
The need for accelerating the process of attracting and using 277 million USD that international financial institutions intend to allocate to Uzbekistan’s health sector to fight the pandemic was noted at the meeting.
Instructions were given to equip hospitals under construction in Tashkent region’s Zangiota district and quarantine zone in Yuqorichirchiq district with modern medical equipment with the assistance of the Asian Development Bank.
The Ministry of Health has been tasked to purchase 2,3 thousand artificial lung ventilation devices and other equipment at the expense of 30 million USD from Asian Development Bank and the World Bank.
Instructions were given to attract additional investments from Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the World Bank, direct them to healthcare system and social sphere.
In the context of the pandemic, it is planned to attract 700 million USD to support entrepreneurship, small and medium-sized business.
The Head of the state noted the need for allocating these funds primarily for development of fruit and vegetable production, food industry and export support.
As is known, Anti-Crisis Fund has been established by the Decree of the President of Uzbekistan of March 19, 2020. It is planned to allocate an additional 3.6 trillion UZS to support projects in infrastructure and utilities development.
Special attention was paid to this issue and responsible persons were given appropriate instructions.
The importance of reaching additional grant agreements with donor organizations for measures to counter coronavirus pandemic was noted.
Tasks were identified to accelerate the attraction and timely targeted use of funds from international financial institutions.
Source: UzA
