Former U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Assistant for South and Central Asia Mark Linscott has been appointed adviser on Uzbekistan's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

According to Dunyo, on Monday Ambassador of Uzbekistan Javlon Vakhabov held talks with Mark Linscott and Director of the Central Asia Office of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Jason Gilpin.

During the meeting, the Uzbek official emphasized that Uzbekistan was committed to continuing the implementation of trade liberalization steps, modernizing the system of reforming its inyternational trade based on the principles and conditions of the WTO agreements, encouraging foreign investment, as well as introducing the best world practices in order to ensure sustainable economic growth. For Uzbekistan, accession to the WTO was a priority task aimed at further integration of the country into the multilateral trading system.

For his part, Mark Linscott thanked for the opportunity given to him to promote Uzbekistan's accession to the WTO and stressed that he was very interested in helping the country in this process. He and his team develop recommendations for reforming the market economy, industrial subsidies and state-owned trade enterprises, and provide practical advice to Uzbekistani agencies on access to foreign markets for goods and services.

Jason Gilpin, having informed about the work done and upcoming plans in the framework of the implementation of technical assistance projects, proposed a number of measures and mechanisms to further increase the effectiveness of assistance to Uzbekistan in the process of joining the WTO.

Agreement was reached at the meeting on coordinating efforts in preparing the necessary documents for WTO accession, as well as intensifying joint work to accelerate the advancement of issues related to the negotiation process.