AKIPRESS.COM - Uzbekistan plans to expand trade with Russia to $10 billion within the next two years, Uzbek Minister of Foreign Trade Elner Ganiyev said.

"Our leaders have set a goal of five billion U.S. dollars for this year. I am sure we will reach it and next year we will be able to nearly double it, to eight to ten billion," Tass news agency cited Ganiyev as saying on Tuesday at the Uzbek-Russian business forum.

According to the Uzbek minister, fruits and vegetables, textiles and ready-made textile products, car, oil and oil products, rolled steel, ferrous metallurgy products, chemicals and petrochemicals are the driving force of mutual trade.

The minister noted that his country had managed to expand its fruit and vegetable exports to Russia thanks to the so-called green corridor, which made it possible to harmonize and simplify customs and phytosanitary procedures. According to Uzbekistan’s ministry of foreign trade, this year’s proceeds from exports of fruits and vegetable are expected to reach at least 500 million U.S. dollars, and the figure might be doubled next year.

"We have come out with an initiative to organized a ‘green corridor’ for textiles," Ganiyev said, adding that textiles exports could reach about one billion U.S. dollars.