On 28th September 2020, Ms. Pattarat Hongthong, Director-General of Thailand International Cooperation Agency (TICA), discussed with H.E. Mr. Furkat Sidikov, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan, via videoconference, seeking the possibility of initiating cooperation between Thailand and Republic of Uzbekistan in various areas of mutual interest.

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan commended Thailand’s response to the COVID–19 pandemic and also appreciated TICA’s support to Uzbekistan on human resource development through scholarship and training. Deputy Minister Sidikov further expressed his wish to establish cooperation with TICA on various areas including modern technology, agriculture, trade and tourism and proposed to develop a cooperative roadmap with TICA.

TICA Director-General proposed three areas of cooperation with Uzbekistan as follows: (1) human resource development by providing Annual International Training Course (AITC), a short term training course and Thailand International Postgraduate Program (TIPP); (2) civil servants training in areas of Uzbekistan’s interest; (3) Post COVID-19 development cooperation by focusing on four areas, namely, 1) health security (2) job security, eg. skills development, vocational education and community-based tourism by applying the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy (3) food security, eg. productivity, processing and product development and (4) energy security, eg. renewable energy in agriculture. Deputy Foreign Minister of Uzbekistan also expressed his interest in solar energy, historical and world heritage and COVID-19 control measures on foreign tourists.

TICA Director – General and Deputy Minister of the Republic of Uzbekistan agreed to discuss further in detail on areas of development cooperation and develop the Cooperative Roadmap in due course.