Fruit and vegetable industry in the Republic of Uzbekistan has a huge export potential, and in the future the country can become one of the largest manufacturers and exporters of high quality and competitive fruit and vegetable products in the world.

Today, one of the important issues is to diversify the geography of exports of fruits and vegetables, increased activity in the field of promotion and positioning of domestic products in foreign markets, as well as improving the supply chain of products for export.

Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) of the Republic of Uzbekistan in conjunction with «Association for the Development of Business Logistics», LLC, after analyzing the existing system of supply and distribution of fruits and vegetables, as well as taking into account the need to build in the Tashkent region modern warehouse, organized a meeting to discuss the issues of building a modern logistics center as a tool to further promote fruit and vegetable exports on October 22, 2014.

The Round Table discussion with the entrepreneurs of Uzbekistan and representatives of international organizations was chaired by Mr. A.Shaykhov, CCI Chairman.

In the course of discussion Mr. Z.Khashimov, the head of IFC Office in Uzbekistan, informed about the opportunities and existing tools to support projects aimed for development of supply chain in agribusiness by the IFC.

Mr. Lee Dong-soo, the head of “Koreian Air” representative office in Uzbekistan, shared company’s experience in organizing transportation of fresh fruits and vegetables with the participants of the meeting. He also made a few practical suggestions and drew attention to the basic problems in the supply chain of fresh products.

At the meeting Mr. Armin Lai, CIM expert from Germany and Adviser of “Association for development of business logistics”, LLC, made a detailed presentation on the establishment and operation of specialized logistics center. The Concept of the project envisaged that the Logistics center will carry out the functions of supply, storage, processing and packing of horticultural products destined for the domestic and foreign markets.

International expert proposed to organize the work in several phases, which include the following studies and activities:

The first stage - create the Project Implementation Unit (PIU) with the participation of international experts and conducting pre-work. The second stage – attracting grants of international organizations for the development of technical documentation. The third stage – attracting direct domestic and foreign investments, and long-term concessional credit lines of international organizations. The fourth stage - construction.

According to the results of the discussions, meeting participants decided to work together on the implementation of this project, and supported creating a Project Implementation Unit which will prepare a protocol with the action plan.

The representatives of Tashkent region administration, the Customs Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan, “UzStandard” Agency, Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources of Uzbekistan, JV «UzVneshTrans», Tashkent State Agrarian University, Uzbekistan Airways, Uzbekistan Railways, Koreian Air in Uzbekistan, GIZ in Uzbekistan, Aid for trade project, USAID, JV “Trans Tech Logistics”, “Trans UL”, LLC, “A-Trans”, LLC, USAID ATAR Project and others.