SEOUL, June 29 (AJP) - Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirziyoyev paid an official visit to Georgia as the two countries pledged to more than triple bilateral trade, from $267.6 million in 2025 to $1 billion.
The target is ambitious given where the relationship currently stands. Trade between the two countries tripled between 2017 and 2025, climbing from $89 million, but the flows remain heavily skewed. In 2025, Georgia exported $190.4 million worth of goods to Uzbekistan, more than double the $77.2 million that moved in the other direction. Georgian pharmaceuticals alone, at $89.3 million, were worth more than all of Uzbekistan's exports to Georgia combined. The figures come from analysis published by Uzbekistan's Center for Economic Research and Reforms.
The presidential visit follows a trip to Uzbekistan by Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze in March 2025, when he met President Mirziyoyev and Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov. The two sides also held the 10th meeting of their Intergovernmental Commission on Economic Cooperation, and the billion-dollar target emerged from those talks as the headline commitment.
The two countries have held a free trade agreement since 1995. Its practical scope has widened as Uzbekistan's economy has shifted. In the 1990s, Uzbek trade was dominated by raw materials. Today, the country exports copper wire, rolled metal products, electrical equipment, processed food and tobacco, and Tashkent sees Tbilisi as both a market and a bridge to Europe through the South Caucasus and the Black Sea.
That is partly what is driving Uzbekistan's investment in the Poti Free Industrial Zone on Georgia's Black Sea coast, where it is building a multi-purpose terminal on up to 30 hectares at a total cost of $18.3 million. The first phase is a cold storage facility rated at 1,000 tons. A 5,000-square-meter covered warehouse follows, then capacity for bulk, oversized and container cargo. The terminal is designed to move Uzbek goods toward European markets and bring European imports back into Central Asia.
Poti sits on the Middle Corridor, the trade route connecting Central Asia with Europe via the Caspian Sea, the South Caucasus and the Black Sea. The route is expected to carry more traffic once construction begins on the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, a long-planned project that would link Uzbekistan directly to China by rail and feed additional cargo westward toward Georgian ports.
Investment beyond the terminal has been limited. Total Georgian foreign direct investment in Uzbekistan reached $46 million over the nine years to 2025, spread across 60 registered companies. TBC Bank is the most prominent example of Georgian private capital in the country.
The sectors both sides flagged as priorities are ones where the gap between current trade and potential is widest. Georgia imports around $539 million worth of textiles annually and $150 million worth of leather and footwear, most of it from other markets. Electrical goods represent another opening, with Georgia bringing in roughly $300 million a year in cables, transformers and household appliances. In pharmaceuticals, the two sides discussed easing the registration of Uzbek medicines in Georgia and establishing joint production facilities with Georgian distributors.
A joint working group under the trade and economy ministries of both countries has been established to translate the commitments from the presidential visit into specific investment and infrastructure projects.
Copyright ⓒ Aju Press All rights reserved.