Aiming at realizing the potential of the region for expanding intra-regional trade through trade promotion, the 5th ECO Business Forum was held on November 8, 2023 at Tashkent, Republic of Uzbekistan, under the framework of 16th ECO Summit.
Jointly organized by the Chamber of Commerce & Industry of Uzbekistan and ECO Secretariat, the Business forum was attended by the delegates from Chambers of Commerce and Industry of the nine ECO Member Countries, including high level representatives of public and private sectors of the ECO region as well representatives from the International Organizations and International Financial Institutions.
While inaugurating the Forum Mr. Davron the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Uzbekistan, expressed his profound gratitude to the participants and underlined the great potential for increasing regional trade among the ECO Member States. The Deputy Secretary General of ECO, Mr. Kashif Zaman, while addressing the forum highlighted the need for more regional integration to boost intra-regional trade through trade liberalization, trade facilitation and greater connectivity. He shared that the intra-regional trade has been recorded at from USD 96.5 billion in 2022 which is less than 8 per cent of ECO trade with the world, at USD 1 trillion 118 billion in global trade.
Mr. Zahid Hussain Abbasi, Director Trade & Investment gave a detailed presentation to the participants and invited them to play their role in implementation of important ECO Agreement in trade. Introducing the operationalization of the ECO Agreement on Protection & Promotion of Investment, he invited business community to make full use of the agreements.
The participants expressed the need to operationlize ECOTA, ECO Reinsurance Company & Visa Sticker Scheme for businessmen. The speakers also suggested ,a greater focus on development of digital trade & SMEs to contribute to regional trade and joint schemes to develop Regional Value Chains.
The forum was also addressed by the reprentatives of the public sector, speakers from Chambers of Commerce and Industries, International Organizations and ECO-CCI etc.
