Wizz Air will place Uzbek-speaking staff on all its Uzbekistan flights in 2025 after the Competition Committee investigated a passenger who was refused safety information in his language and treated rudely when he asked for it.
British Ambassador Timothy Smart is departing Tashkent after three years, leaving behind a bilateral trade relationship that expanded nearly eightfold, a new international commercial court in the works, and deepened security ties — with a high-level Uzbek delegation to London still to come.
Uzbekistan’s Deputy Minister of Investments, Industry and Trade Shohrukh Gulyamov held a series of bilateral meetings with major UAE companies in Abu Dhabi, advancing project frameworks for water treatment in New Tashkent, logistics digitalisation, gas transportation financing and urban development.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang visited Tashkent on 17 October 2026, meeting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov. Beijing pledged to increase imports of Uzbek products, reaffirmed commitment to the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, and identified energy, artificial intelligence and modern agriculture as priority areas for expanded cooperation.
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has signed two grant agreements totaling USD 1.1 million with Azerbaijan to fund early-stage feasibility work on the Caspian Green Energy Corridor, a cross-border project that would connect Uzbekistan’s power grid to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan through a proposed 400-kilometre submarine electricity cable.
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has expressed support for Chinese proposals to build a logistics hub in Andijan and develop agrivoltaics projects, following talks with the heads of CAMCE, China Energy and Sinoma Energy on the sidelines of the Council of Foreign Investors in the Fuel and Energy Sector.
Tashkent’s city council has approved a concept to buy 14 five-car trains for the metro, with seven international manufacturers assessed and only China’s CRRC and Russia’s Global Transport Solutions submitting commercial proposals.
A Saudi-led international consortium has signed a 35-year public-private partnership to build a new Tashkent airport by 2030, with a $2.5 billion first phase designed to replace a city-centre facility already approaching its capacity limit.
