French President Emmanuel Macron visited Uzbekistan on Thursday after a trip to Kazakhstan – part of a two-day tour to boost France's footprint in Central Asia, secure raw materials and counter China's growing influence in the region.
Macron was in Uzbekistan, the first trip to the country by a French president in nearly 30 years, to push France's business and cultural profile.
He used the trip to give his backing to Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev's programme of opening the country up to global investors.
"Uzbekistan is transforming. We must be there," Macron said at the opening of a French-Uzbek business forum in the ancient Silk Road city of Samarkand.
The French leader's visit comes as European nations jostle for influence in the resource-rich region, where Russia, China, Turkey and the EU all have economic interests.
Macron is accompanied by a delegation consisting of CEOs of France's top energy companies, several of which are expanding their operations in Uzbekistan.
Uzbekistan is the second leg of Macron's Central Asia trip after his visit to Kazakhstan earlier this week.
Uzbekistan opened to the outside world in 2016. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who took office that year, put an end to two decades of isolation imposed by his predecessor and former mentor Islam Karimov, but there is still no real political opposition.
Economically, however, the country opened up, and multinationals started to show interest.
Paris has emphasised the country's "reform dynamic" and said it regularly brings up issues around rule of law.
"The French government has confidence in your strategy," Macron told Mirziyoyev. "We believe in this policy. We encourage it and we want to participate in it."
The joint venture Nurlikum Mining – owned 51 percent by French nuclear giant Orano and 49 percent by Navoiy Uran, the Uzbek state-owned nuclear company – has been active in the country since 2018.
Other French power corporations, notably EDF, TotalEnergies and Voltalia, have signed agreements aimed at bolstering Uzbekistan's energy infrastructure, while engineering group Egis did a feasibility study for the tramway in Tashkent.
In addition, the French Treasury is funding a water provision project in the arid region of Kashkadarya.
Competing alliances
Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic, lies in the heart of Central Asia, and still maintains strong ties with Russia. Macron's visit coincides with the pro-Russian Verona Eurasian Economic Forum in Samarkand on 3-4 November, which is organised by the Conoscere Eurasia Association.
Uzbekistan is also a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a group set up by China and consisting of Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and more recently, India and Pakistan.
And along with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, Kazakhstan is part of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), a Moscow-led military alliance nicknamed "Russia's Nato".
These cooperations in turn fit neatly into China's gigantic Belt and Road initiative, a trillion-dollar infrastructure project that spans the globe.
Macron's visit shows that Europe, with its "Global Gateway" project, is serious in its attempts to counter Chinese – and Russian – influence in Central Asia.
'Jostling'
Macron acknowledged the "geopolitical pressures" being put on Kazakhstan, which borders Russia to its north and China to its east.
"I do not underestimate the geopolitical difficulties, the pressures, sometimes the jostling to which you may be subjected," Macron told Kazakhstan's president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev during his visit there.
"In a world where great powers want to become hegemonies and where regional powers are becoming unpredictable", the French president said he welcomed Kazakhstan's "refusal ... to take the route of becoming a vassal".
Macron's trip to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan aims to support "interest in a diversification of partnerships expressed by both countries", a French presidency source told the French news agency AFP.
(with newswires)
