Azerbaijan's Chairmanship Will Give New Impetus To Central Asia Format - Mirziyoyev

(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) TURKMENBASHI, Turkmenistan, October 8. Azerbaijan's chairmanship of the Consultative Meeting of the Heads of State of Central Asian countries will give additional impetus to the format, President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev said on October 8 at the eighth Consultative Meeting of the Heads of State of Central Asian countries and Azerbaijan in Avaza, Trend 's special correspondent reports.

“I am convinced that under the leadership of the Azerbaijani side, our work within this format will receive additional impetus, while brotherly cooperation will contribute to strengthening unity, trust and solidarity,” he said.

Mirziyoyev noted that the Consultative Meeting of Central Asian countries with the participation of Azerbaijan is of historical significance.

“Today's meeting is of particular importance as it is being held for the first time together with brotherly Azerbaijan,” he said.

Mirziyoyev also highlighted Turkmenistan's successful chairmanship.

“Over the past year, we have made significant progress in regional cooperation on many important issues and reached concrete agreements. Central Asia has changed significantly in recent years. The very atmosphere of relations between our countries has changed. We meet more often, discuss issues openly, find solutions and support each other. Our Consultative Meetings have played an important role in this.

When creating this format, we proceeded from a simple understanding: the prosperity and security of Central Asia directly depend on trust between our states. A historic event was the completion of the procedure for concluding the Treaty of Friendship, Good Neighborliness and Cooperation for the Development of Central Asia in the 21st Century.

At the same time, we are not seeking to create cumbersome structures. We need a flexible and clear format in which strong, sovereign and independent states cooperate on the basis of mutual respect, trust and pragmatism. This approach has already produced results,” he said.

Mirziyoyev also proposed stepping up efforts to establish a regional alliance on critical minerals initiated by Uzbekistan. According to him, one of the first steps could be the creation of a unified digital map of critical mineral reserves in Central Asia.

He noted that such a resource would provide a more comprehensive picture of the region's potential and demonstrate to international investors that the Central Asian countries and Azerbaijan are ready to develop this area jointly.

“The next major area is technological development. Artificial intelligence and big data are already transforming industry, transport, energy, agriculture, education and public administration. The productivity of our economies and our ability to compete in the future will largely depend on these technologies. At the same time, digital projects often deliver results faster than large-scale infrastructure projects. Therefore, I propose that we combine the capabilities of our countries and begin creating shared computing infrastructure.

Its foundation could be an interconnected network of national data centers. This would allow us to use computing capacity more efficiently, develop our own digital products and create conditions for large-scale artificial intelligence projects. But infrastructure alone is not enough. We also need specialists, research and strong technology companies. Therefore, we propose launching joint targeted training programs, supporting research projects and creating more opportunities for technology entrepreneurship.

Finally, one of the most important issues for the future of our region is people. Our country has significant demographic potential. The population is growing, and the number of young people is increasing. Our future will largely depend on the quality of their education and professional training: what our economy will look like in 10, 20 or 30 years. We must keep this in mind. Therefore, education and youth support should have a special place in our cooperation. We need to better understand what specialists our economies will need tomorrow.

For this purpose, we propose developing a regional atlas of in-demand professions and skills. It could combine our countries' forecasts for areas where there is already a shortage of specialists and where demand is expected to grow in the coming years. This would allow universities and vocational institutions to take into account the actual needs of our economies in advance. In the future, we could train specialists for specific major projects being implemented simultaneously in several countries of our region. In this way, education would be directly linked to the development of industry, transport, energy, digital technologies and other sectors.

Esteemed heads of state, we have achieved a great deal in recent years. It is now important to consolidate these changes and make our cooperation sustainable for decades to come. The formula is simple: solidarity and trust for the sake of development and security. We are responsible for the region we leave to future generations. It should be peaceful, secure and economically strong, and provide people with opportunities to live, work, study and raise their children with dignity. Taking this opportunity, I congratulate Azerbaijan on assuming the chairmanship of the Consultative Meetings,” he said.

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