INFORMATION DIGEST OF PRESS OF UZBEKISTAN # 88

May 5, 2017

OFFICIALLY
New TV channel "Uzbekistan 24" will have offices abroad

Tashkent Airport named after First President of Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan creates new free economic zones

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
UN High Commissioner to Visit Uzbekistan

THE STRATEGY OF ACTIONS ON FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF UZBEKISTAN
The higher education system in Uzbekistan

CULTURE
May 15-16, Tashkent and Samarkand are due to an international scientific and cultural congress "Cultural heritage of Uzbekistan is the way for dialogue between peoples and countries"

OFFICIALLY

New TV channel "Uzbekistan 24" will have offices abroad
In Uzbekistan, there will be a 24-hour TV and radio channel, with correspondent points abroad, working on the basis of a "new format of news journalism."
The goals of creating a new channel are the improvement of "bringing to the population objective and reliable information, saturation of the republic’s media space with a high-quality information and analytical product providing prompt coverage of significant events in politics, security, economy, culture, science and sport, occurring at home and abroad".
The new channel should "respond in a timely and adequate manner" to "current trends, phenomena and events, taking into account an objective and principled position on issues of domestic and foreign policy of the Republic of Uzbekistan." "High professional level of TV programs" will be provided by introducing "media technologies, modern standards and creative approaches in information coverage."
The tasks of O’zbekiston 24 also included assistance in establishing "an open direct dialogue between the responsible leaders of state bodies and organizations with the public, the wide involvement of observers, representatives of the expert community and academia to discuss and address the pressing problems of citizens and topical issues on the ground."
O’zbekiston 24 will be included in the public social package of digital broadcasting in two formats (SD and HD), and its broadcast in HD format will be simultaneously conducted on the UzHD channel before the full transition of broadcasting in the country to this format.
The new TV and radio channel, designed to create a "modern format of TV and radio broadcasting" in the country, should be broadcast in the coming months.
(Source: IA «Uzbekistan Today»)

Tashkent Airport named after First President of Uzbekistan
International Tashkent Airport was named after the First President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov.
President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a resolution “On assigning the name of the First President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov to the International Airport in Tashkent” on 4 May.
Uzbek leader created a special commission led by the Prime Minister Abdulla Aropov. The group will prepare a programme of complex measures on improving efficient operation of infrastructure and cardinally improving quality of services, provided to passengers at the airport.
The resolution said that the commission should prepare the programme within a month.
The programme should include measures on cutting time spent by passengers to pass customs, border and migration procedures via introduction of modern technologies at the airport.
The document will also adopt measures on improving quality of services, provided passengers and guests.
It will also stipulate measures on efficient use of infrastructure of airport and optimize technological process of providing services to passengers and processing their luggage.
Additionally, the document will include measures on creating necessary conditions for people, who are waiting or accompanying passengers, organizing parking sites, etc.
(Source: UzDaily.com)

Uzbekistan creates new free economic zones
Seven free economic zones, specializing in production of pharmaceutical products, will be created in Uzbekistan.
President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a decree “On creation of free economic zones Nukus-pharm, Zomin-pharm, Kosonsoy-pharm, Sirdaryo-pharm, Baisun-pharm, Bustonliq-pharm and Parkent-pharm”.
The decision was adopted to develop pharmaceutical industry of Uzbekistan and support producer of medicaments and medical products, saturate local market with high quality local medical products.
According to the decree, free economic zones Nukus-pharm, Zomin-pharm, Kosonsoy-pharm, Sirdaryo-pharm, Baisun-pharm, Bustonliq-pharm and Parkent-pharm are created in Uzbekistan.
Zones are created in Jizzakh, Namangan, Syrdarya, Surkhandarya and Tashkent regions, as well as Karakalpakstan.
Uzbek leader ordered to develop a programme on creating industrial plantation and list of concrete types of medical plants, recommended for production with further deep processing and production of medicaments and dietary supplements in the territory of new free economic zones.
The decree said that modern production capacities on processing medical herbs and production of medicaments and medical products, auxiliary and packaging materials will be created in new zones.
This will help to deepen localization of production of pharmaceutical products based on local medical herbs and materials.
Economic zones created for 30 years with opportunity to extend it. Special tax, customs and currency regimes will be applied in new zones.
The participants will be exempted from payment of some taxes, mandatory payments and customs payments based on the size of their investments.
The participants of the zones will receive access to road-transport and engineering-communication infrastructure.
President also recommended banks to provide loans to create new production capacities at these zones and production of medical herbs.
If the project initiators have no enough resources to get the loans, the banks will supply equipment for leasing.
(Source: UzDaily.com)

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

UN High Commissioner to Visit Uzbekistan
On May 10-12, a delegation of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), headed by Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, is expected Uzbekistan with an official visit.
The purpose sought from the forthcoming meetings and talks in our country is to discuss the current state of cooperation between Uzbekistan and OHCHR, as well as possible areas of interaction in the future, in areas of shared interest.
Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein is the seventh UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. He specializes in international law, international criminal justice, peacebuilding, peacekeeping operations and the fight against nuclear terrorism. The official took part in the efforts directed at establishing and institutionalizing the International Criminal Court, identifying elements of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. He speaks Arabic, English and French.
As the main priorities the High Commissioner outlined the solution of issues related to the humanitarian situation in the zones of military operations with the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, as well as the deteriorating circumstances in Venezuela, Ukraine, the Gaza Strip and a number of African countries.
It is expected that during his stay in Uzbekistan Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein will give an interview and after the visit will talk with journalists at the International Press Club.
(Source: «Uzbekistan Today» newspaper)

THE STRATEGY OF ACTIONS ON FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF UZBEKISTAN

The higher education system in Uzbekistan
The advancement of higher education is one of the priority areas of the Strategy for Actions. The Program for the comprehensive development of the higher education system for the years 2017-2021 adopted last week was not only a logical continuation of the Program for the modernization of the material and technical base of higher educational institutions and fundamental improvement in the quality for training of specialists realized in the past five years, but also gave unprecedented impulse in scope to the reforms.
Will build more
Within the framework of the previous five-year program, construction and installation works were carried out at 202 sites in 25 universities. In accordance with the new program, construction, reconstruction and repair are planned in 180 facilities of 48 higher educational institutions. The target lists include educational and scientific-laboratory buildings, sports facilities and objects of social and engineering infrastructure.
53 higher educational institutions will be gradually outfitted with cutting-edge teaching and laboratory equipment; interuniversity scientific laboratories will be established in seven universities. For comparison, in the last five-year period only 202 training laboratories were equipped, and now there are 400.
It is noteworthy that for the first time targeted development programs were separately approved for each higher educational institution. At the same time, conditions will be created to increase the number of students.
Training of specialists to grow
Recently, great attention was placed on enhancing the system for preparation of specialists on the basis of economic sectors needs. Proceeding from this, the admission to such educational fields and specialties as engineering, production and construction raised from 23% to 33.2% of the total. Updated state educational standards and curricula for the training of specialists in higher education, as well as retraining and advanced training of teachers were introduced. This work will continue in the future.
At the same time, the total quota of admission during this whole time remained practically unchanged within the limits of 56 thousand entrants. In the next five years, it is planned 18% increase in the total quotas of admission rates. This process will be put into practice step-by-step with the construction of new academic buildings.
Teaching opportunities to be enhanced
Previous years are singled out by large-scale works to better the system of retraining and advanced training of teaching staff. A fundamentally new system represented by general education and industry centers was formed in this direction.
In the forthcoming stage of progress it is necessary to intensify the role of the Istedod Foundation in this work. In the near future a set of measures for its advancement will be elaborated. The Fund’s activities will be aimed at securing a steady increase in the level of professional skills of teachers of higher educational institutions, including through the expansion of their training, upgrading of skills and internships abroad. The work to involve the foreign specialists in the educational process will be brought to a qualitatively new level.
Each university of the Republic established partnerships with the leading specialized foreign scientific and educational institutions of the United States, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Japan, South Korea, China and other countries, and this fact is of extremely great significance in the process of its development. On this basis it is provided to attract annually at least 350 foreign highly qualified teachers and scientists to the educational process in the domestic universities. The invited specialists will contribute to the modernization of higher education in the framework of modern world trends and broaden the horizons of both teachers and students.
Quality control
Improvement of the quality control system of educational services will be another important direction in the development of the education system. One of the units of the State Testing Center under the Cabinet of Ministers was previously involved in this. Currently, a state inspection is being established to monitor the quality of education.
The volume of financial resources to be spent in 2017-2021 for the realization of the Program will be amounted to more than 1.7 trillion soums (currency rates of CB RU from 05.05.2017, 1$= 3734.91soums), of which 1.2 trillion - for the construction, reconstruction and overhaul of educational and laboratory buildings, gyms and student dormitories, over 500 billion soums - for fitting out with educational and laboratory equipment, furniture and inventory, creating interuniversity laboratory complexes for joint use, and developing information and communication technologies.
(Source: «Uzbekistan Today» newspaper)

CULTURE

May 15-16, Tashkent and Samarkand are due to an international scientific and cultural congress "Cultural heritage of Uzbekistan is the way for dialogue between peoples and countries"
Over 120 foreign and 100 national scientists and experts specializing in the fields of preservation and propaganda of the cultural and historical heritage of Uzbekistan, in Oriental Studies, archeology, history, oriental manuscripts, numismatics, textiles, ceramics will take part in the convention. Among the representatives of world science are famous scholars, heads of museums and research institutes, editors of academic journals, eminent collectors from Russia, Canada, Italy, Great Britain, India, Egypt, Korea, Belgium, Holland, France, Germany, Czech Republic, USA, China, Turkey, Greece, Azerbaijan and other countries, as well as representatives of UNESCO and ICOMOS (International Council for the Preservation of Monuments and Sites).
The purpose sought from the scientific forum is to study and preserve the cultural and historical heritage of Uzbekistan. Reports on unique objects of material and artistic cultures created on the territory of Uzbekistan and stored in museums around the world are expected at the forum.
The forum will have not only scientific and cultural, but also public significance, as it will become an important event in the process of implementing the Strategy of Action on the five priority development directions of the Republic of Uzbekistan in 2017-2021, adopted at the initiative of the President of the country Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
The main event of the forum will be the presentation of the exclusive cultural and educational media project "Cultural heritage of Uzbekistan in the world’s collections", the author and head of which is the honored journalist of the Republic of Uzbekistan F. Abdukhalikov, and the scientific leader of the project is the academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic E. Rtveladze.
The event will showcase the first five volumes of book-albums published in three languages from the series "Cultural Heritage of Uzbekistan" under the titles "Collection of the State Museum of the Orient" (Moscow), "Collection of the Russian Ethnographic Museum" (St. Petersburg), "Collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery" (Moscow), "Carpets and Embroidery of Uzbekistan in the Collections of the World" (Russia, USA, Canada, Australia), and "Alisher Navoi’s Works in the Collection of the Russian National Library" (St. Petersburg) .
In addition, it is planned to present six volumes, which are going to be printed - "Musical heritage of Uzbekistan", "Collection of the State Hermitage", "Collection of the State Historical Museum", "Collection of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts", "Carpet weaving of Uzbekistan: a tradition preserved in centuries" and "Collection of museums in Germany." The curators of each volume are well-known scientists, art historians, musicologists and orientalists of Uzbekistan.
Also the participants of the event will be demonstrated documentary films about the collections of Uzbekistan in the collections of various museums of the world. To this end, the creative team of the project carried out unique surveys in 15 museums around the world and recorded interviews with famous scientists.
It should be noted that the implemented project "Cultural heritage of Uzbekistan in the world’s assemblies" has no analogues in the world and, in the opinion of international experts, equal in breadth of coverage. Special attention should be paid to the fact that in the course of preparation for the publication of books-albums by well-known scientists, a serious research work was carried out to collect and generalize the best artifacts originating from the territory of Uzbekistan, including unique samples of archeology, ceramics, metal products, numismatics, textiles, Jewelry art and painting. All this made it possible to reflect in the published media products the richness and uniqueness of the cultural and historical heritage of the people of Uzbekistan, which will make a worthy contribution to the spiritual and educational upbringing of the younger generation. It is the results of these studies that will be announced at the international congress by its participants.
A cultural program was developed for the forum participants. It includes a visit to the folklore media festival of the NAEMM with the tasting of the best dishes of national cuisine from the regions of Uzbekistan, as well as a contest for the best pilaf, viewing a unique light and musical performance in Registan Square - 3D mapping "Cultural heritage of Uzbekistan is the heritage of all mankind", familiarization in Mirzo Madrassah Ulugbek with an exhibition of the best works of carpet weaving and suzane of Uzbek masters with the presentation of the album "Carpets and embroidery of Uzbekistan in the collections of the world" and many other fascinating Activities.
The project is implemented by the National Association of Electronic Media of Uzbekistan, the UNESCO office in Tashkent, the regional office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Central Asia, the Zamon Press Info publishing house, the Uzbekistan Today news agency, and the Karavan-TV channel.
(Source: «Uzbekistan Today» newspaper)

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