Tashkent (Uzbekistan): India has extended a concessional line of credit to Uzbekistan for procuring goods and services in the defence sector. This was the key takeaway from the meeting between India’s Minister of Defence Rajnath Singh and his Uzbek counterpart Major General Bakhodir Nizamovich Kurbanov here today.

Rajnath Singh is on a three-day visit to Uzbeksitan since Nov. 1. Yesterday, he attended the Council of Heads of Government (CHG) of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) representing Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India will host the next meeting of SCO heads of government in 2020.

This is the first visit by an Indian defence minister to Uzbekistan in about 15 years. Rajnath Singh also witnessed the curtain raiser of the first-ever India-Uzbekistan joint military exercise ‘Dustlik’ 2019.

The defence ministers agreed that the two sides would continue to work together to further raise their level of engagement in the defence sphere in keeping with strategic partnership between India and Uzbekistan.