Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are due to launch in February 2019 a “Silk Visa” general scheme as announced by the Acting First Deputy Chairman of the State Committee for Tourism of Uzbekistan, Ulugbek Kasimkhodzhaev.
Kasimkhodzhaev noted that other countries in the region are also showing interest in this project, amongst them neighbouring Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. At the same time, Kazakhstan has tabled to connect Azerbaijan and Turkey to this project.
Central Asia, as it is defined today, is comprised of five former Soviet republics: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. All in all, Central Asian countries constitute a large region with a population of about 70 million people.
According to the UN, over the past 10 years, the average GDP growth in Central Asian countries as a whole was 6.2 per cent, when the whole world developed at a rate of 2.6 per cent. There has also been a sharp increase in trade, which has doubled in 10 years, from $ 1.6 billion to $ 3.1 billion.
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are the region’s leading economies.
