Uzbekistan needs to finalize negotiations with only one country to join the WTO

Uzbekistan needs to conclude negotiations with only one country to become a member of the World Trade Organization. This was announced by Azizbek Urinov, the President’s Representative on WTO affairs.

According to him, in 2025 Uzbekistan completed bilateral market access negotiations with 33 out of 34 WTO member states. More than 40 negotiation rounds were held, along with two meetings of the Working Party, and responses were provided to over 200 written questions. In particular, agreements were reached with major trading partners such as the European Union, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, and others. At present, only one bilateral negotiation remains to be finalized.

It was reported that in 2025 Uzbekistan adopted 30 regulatory legal acts in line with WTO requirements, including:

• four laws of the Republic of Uzbekistan;
• eight presidential decrees and resolutions;
• 12 resolutions of the Cabinet of Ministers;
• six departmental regulations.

In addition, drafts of 29 more regulatory legal acts were prepared.

Comprehensive reforms were also carried out in the areas of customs procedures, export duties, trade defense measures, protection of intellectual property rights, technical regulation, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, and technical barriers to trade (SPS and TBT).

Among the priority tasks for 2026 are the completion of the remaining bilateral negotiation (with Taiwan), finalizing multilateral negotiations and the Working Party report, fully aligning national legislation, and bringing Uzbekistan’s WTO accession process to its conclusion.

It is worth noting that earlier it was reported that Azizbek Urinov, together with Russia’s Minister of Economic Development Maxim Reshetnikov, signed a protocol finalizing bilateral market access negotiations as part of Uzbekistan’s accession to the World Trade Organization.