March 20, 2014
MPs pass amendments to Constitution in first reading.. 3
President Islam Karimov’s Greeting Address at the Navruz Festive Occasion.. 3
Tashkent’s Navoi Park Hosts Central Festive Event Occasioned to Navruz Holiday.. 4
Uzbekistan to build a solar power station.. 6
Press-service of MFA of the Republic of Uzbekistan
POLICY
MPs pass amendments to Constitution in first reading
Legislative Chamber of Oliy Majlis of Uzbekistan passed a draft law “On introduction of changes and amendments to some articles of the Constitution of Uzbekistan (articles 32, 78, 93, 98, 103 and 117)” in the first reading, the press service of the lower house of Uzbek parliament said.
The draft law was initiated by the President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov.
The changes and amendments to the Constitution is directed at further deepening constitutional reforms on further expanding rights and authorities of the parliament, strengthening responsibility of the Cabinet of Ministers, and executive bodies as a whole, ensure public and parliament control over activities of the state bodies.
The document envisages transfer of part of authorities of the President to Prime Minister and it clarifies order of providing and approving candidates of the Prime Minister by the both chambers of the parliament.
According to amendments, candidate to the post of Prime Minister at consideration and approval his/her candidacy at Oliy Majlis should provide a programme of action of Cabinet of Ministers for new and long-term perspective.
In line with changes, President can suspend or abolish acts of the state bodies and local administrations if the documents fail to comply with norms of the legislation. This helps to strengthen responsibility of the state bodies and officials for adopted decisions, especially those decisions, which touches interests of population.
The document sets democratic order of forming Central Election Commission and principles of its operation. This will be another step to strengthen constitutional rights of the citizens to be elected and elect.
After the discussions, MPs supported the draft law unanimously and passed it in the first reading.
(Source: UzDaily.com)
Navruz in Uzbekistan
President Islam Karimov’s Greeting Address at the Navruz Festive Occasion
Dear compatriots!
Esteemed guests!
With tremendous enthusiasm and joy do we always thoroughly prepare for and widely celebrate the holidays associated with historical dates momentous for our country and the people.
Nonetheless, the atmosphere of an ever elated mood when we look forward to and celebrate the Navruz, is incomparable, without any doubt, to anything. The holiday itself comes these beautiful days and constitutes a symbol of spring, awakening and renewal of nature, and the start of a new year in the eastern calendar.
It is a great pleasure for me to sincerely congratulate you, my dearest ones, who have gathered at this magnificent square – and our entire nation in your face – on this marvelous holiday of Navruz from the bottom of my heart and express my deepest respect and kindest wishes to you.
Dear friends!
Indeed, that our people look forward to meeting the Navruz with big hopes, revering it as the most ancient and a genuinely national holiday, has a profound symbolic meaning.
After all, the ideas associated with Navruz are known to be fully harmonious with our customs and traditions that have shaped across many millennia and date back to the Avesto era.
Such a reverent attitude to the Navruz means first and foremost a profound respect for our ancient and great history, rich history and the heritage of our ancestors. At the very same time, it carries a bright confirmation to the fact that our nation – notwithstanding the thorny tests and misery, the extraordinarily obscure periods in the far and late past – has always remained devoted to its sacred values by preserving them with care and passing them on to one generation to another.
With the arrival of Navruz in our land, every one of us is imbued with the spirit of spring, the wonderful holiday of renewal when everything in the nature awakens, and we especially deeply feel that we are an inalienable part of our native land. At this amazing period of the year we sense to an even greater extent our inextricable link with the nature, the harmony with her, and we ought to value and preserve the current peaceful life as the apple of the eye.
And certainly every person, every family, everyone who lives in our marvelous and prolific land, irrespective of ethnic and linguistic origin and religion, are keen to express their earnest feelings, noble hopes and gracious aspirations at these radiant moments.
During the Navruz days, any grievances and quarrels are forgotten, and all the residents of our country – the old and the young – gather around a plentiful dastarkhan and with open souls strive to share the bliss of the holiday with their close ones and friends, treat them with traditional spring meals like sumalak, khalim, kuk-samsa, wish everybody a sound health, happiness and prosperity, visit the venerated aksakals, the people of older generation, to earn their blessing.
These days all of us try to do good deeds and provide the ill, orphans and the needy with selfless help, and raise their spirit and mood with good words. All this constitutes a bright indication of the fact that such noble, truly unique qualities as humanism, magnanimity, kindness and compassion have come to be the backbone of the mentality of our people who always preserve them carefully in the heart. I think you will agree with me that such properties are inherent in very few peoples indeed.
If we try figure out what the most cherished dream of our nation is, we come to a conclusion that it strives primarily for a peaceful life in the country, in the neighboring countries and the world in general, for the resolution of conflicts in various regions, the abolition of confrontation without the application of force, with peaceful means only and through political dialogue.
The people of Uzbekistan wish to see a clear and peaceful sky above our Motherland and a stable and prosperous life. We wish the very same things for others.
Allow me to take this opportunity to greet and congratulate on the Navruz holiday the ambassadors of foreign nations and representatives of international organizations present here at this lovely square, all our international partners, and wish prosperity and wellbeing to the peoples of near and far abroad.
Dear friends!
At these exciting moments I sincerely wish that the phrase “May every day of ours be like Navruz!” from our great forefather and inspiration Alisher Navoi, comes true. May all of us, the entire people of Uzbekistan are always accompanied by a joyous spring mood, warmth and light of the Navruz.
Today, with a sense of immense pride do I look at the happy faces of our enthusiastic and energetic young men and women and underscore that all of us should understand well that the progress of our country, its attainment of a well-deserved place among the advanced democratic nations, depends primarily on the abilities of our youth, on your, my dear children, aspiration for knowledge and heights of sciences – in a word, on your comprehensive advancement. These are the very criteria with which the international community will assess our abilities, and the achievements we are capable of furthering.
We highly appreciate our youths who have a sense of self-esteem and dignity and deeply conscious of their duty before the Motherland, who endeavor for high ends and willing to compete with their fellows around the globe in equal terms across all spheres. We consider them our hope and support and the genuinely decisive force of today and the future. I would like to assure you that we have been mobilizing all our resources and capacities for you to grow physically sound and spiritually mature and to gladden us with your accomplishments.
May the Navruz bring you, my dear ones, happiness, luck and love, and may all the cherished dreams of yours come true!
Esteemed compatriots!
By mentally hugging all of you, I greet you again on the wonderful spring holiday.
May the sky above us be always clear, may the peace reign in our land!
May our homes be full of prosperity, wellbeing and abundance, and may every one of our dreams come true!
Happy Navruz, my dear ones!
Tashkent’s Navoi Park Hosts Central Festive Event Occasioned to Navruz Holiday
The land of Uzbekistan has welcomed the Navruz in its inimitable beauty, with a spring breeze and the blossom of snowdrops and tulips. Navruz is a symbol of clear skies, rebirth of the nature, love, and it is a hymn of life. The air around smells sumalak, here and there you can hear a proud roar of horses getting ready for the ulak-kupkari, the gambling cries of palvans, and a tender laughter of gorgeous girls and young women.
Everything around is full of life. The spring finds a response in the heart of every person. The people are overfilled with the childish joy of renewal, creation and neatness.
This is the very way the Navruz starts in our country as a symbol of the power of nature, unity, creation and grace.
The Alisher Navoi National Park of Uzbekistan acquired a festive decoration on March 19.
It gathered the lawmakers, government members, figures of science, culture, sports and arts, advanced people of the production sphere, entrepreneurs, veterans, representatives of embassies of foreign nations and international organizations accredited in our country.
President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov entered the square accompanied by a storm of applause from the participants of the festive event.
In his keynote address, the head of our state congratulated the people of Uzbekistan on the Navruz, a holiday of renewal, beauty, love and compassion.
Garlanded with colorful flags, balloons, live flowers, the square and the stage welcome the start of the holiday, festivities, under the sounds of karnays and surnays. At these unforgettable moments, the souls of our compatriots are overfilled with joy and a sense of gratitude for the invaluable gifts of life, peaceful and harmonious life of the people and country.
From times immemorial, our people have met the awakening of the nature, the start of a new year with immense celebration, big hopes, clear heart and kind intentions, and crucially – the creative labor. After all, cleanness and order bring about abundance and health.
The beloved holiday is widely celebrated this year also across all cities and villages, auls and mahallas with folk festivities.
President Islam Karimov’s resolution on the arrangement of nationwide celebration of the holiday Navruz in the year 2014, signed 24 February of the current year, has become a guide for action in efforts to organize worthwhile celebration of most important and truly nationwide festival.
In accordance with the resolution, wide-ranging endeavors are underway in every corner of the nation under a motto “May every day of ours be like Navruz!” to hold the holiday in line with national values in the form of folk sayils (street festivities).
From the very first days of the spring, dynamic works have been in progress throughout the country in beautification and landscaping. Following cold winter days, residential quarters were put in order. During the nationwide charity hashar organized March 15, the efforts were assigned to cleaning and beautification of mahallas and streets, squares and gardens, enterprises and organizations. Shrines and cemeteries were made neat, and fruit and decorative trees as well as flowers were planted. Visits were arranged to low-income families, lonely elders, people with disabilities. All this is suggestive of the sense of love and compassion, care for the needy, as well as humanism have come to be priority ideals in our society.
The stage welcomes the children, holders of our future. Their exciting songs and dances glorify the beautiful and happy childhood.
A country is powerful when its children are healthy, and the children are healthy in a powerful country. For this idea of the head of our state to be implemented, the issue related to fostering a healthy and comprehensively advanced generation was elevated to the level of state strategy from the first days of national independence. All our endeavors are assigned to nurturing a physically robust, deeply knowledgeable, will powered and courageous generation of genuine patriots, individuals with sound thinking, firm beliefs and high spiritual ethics.
Another practical reflection of this care was manifest on the announcement of the year 2014 as the one of the Healthy Child at the initiative of President Islam Karimov.
In the festivities this year, a special significance is attached to performances of artistic and folk-ethnographic groups of the Republic of Karakalpakstan and provinces of the country. Their program contains the demonstration of national customs, lapars, songs and dances of each region, askiya, bakhshi contests, along with performances of artistic teams of the numerous ethnic cultural centers in our country.
Peace and tranquility is the highest good achieved by our nation under the leadership of President Islam Karimov in the years of independent development. Our ancestors used to say, not incidentally, that a peaceful country is a happy country. After all, it is only in those places where peace reigns people can set high and gracious goals for themselves and accomplish them, realize their talents and abilities for the good of the native land, and celebrate holidays with bliss and in friendly atmosphere.
It is for this very reason our people regard this good with special reverence and always wish peace and prosperity for themselves and others. In the words of the President of the country, the peaceful life, interethnic harmony, the environment of mutual respect and cohesion constitute the foundation for Uzbekistan’s colossal accomplishments admired across the world on its way of independent development.
“Every holiday is celebrated in an elated mood in Uzbekistan,” says the participant of the festive occasion, Japan’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in our country Fumihiko Kato. “I am simply charmed by the peculiarity of the holiday Navruz. The joyous, festive mood of people is indicative of the peaceful and prosperous life reigning in this country.”
“Navruz makes us move closer to the nature. This holiday consolidates the confidence in that everything is being done in this country to further the interests of people, development and prosperity of the native land, wellbeing of the nation,” says Gulsara Usmanova, adviser to the chairman of the citizens’ assembly for religious enlightenment and ethical education in the Tinchlik mahalla of Jizzakh region’s Zomin district.
The performances of masters of arts, young singers who glorify the native land, the independence, the holiday of rebirth and youth, find a deep reflection in the hearts of those present at the square. The beautiful melodies, inspiring dances, and the truly magic action grant everybody a genuinely spring bliss. At these fabulous moments, our souls are overfilled with the sense of love and devotion to the Motherland, kindness and generosity.
The live coverage of the central festive occasion timed to the Navruz celebrations, which was watched in many countries across the globe owing to the communication satellite, is another manifestation of the enormous achievements of our people in the years of independent development, the scales and scope of the efforts in the name of the prosperity of the native land as well as the wellbeing and happiness of people.
The Navruz festivities, holiday sayils continue in towns and villages, throughout the entire nation.
(Source: Uzbekistan National News Agency UzA)
economy
Uzbekistan to build a solar power station
A US $310 million project to construct a 100 MWt solar power station in Samarkand province will be brought to completion in March 2019.
The Asian Development Bank extends a US $100 million loan to finance the construction of a 100 MWt solar power station in Samarkand province (Republic of Uzbekistan). The project is expected to facilitate the large-scale development of solar power in the country.
“A given project will be the biggest of the type ever implemented in Central Asia and one of the biggest in the world,” says the ADB President Takehiko Nakao. “Uzbekistan is blessed with huge land resources, plenty of sunshine and highly qualified and educated labour force, with all these factors being indispensable for the country’s formation as a major player in the development of solar power in the region.”
The project to construct a solar power station in Samarkand province will allow the Republic, one of thecountries with the biggest reserves of hydrocarbon resources in the world, to prevent interruptions in energy supply, diversify power resources and cut down greenhouse emissions. Today, about 90 per cent of electric power in Uzbekistan is generated from hydrocarbon fuel, which requires the injection of capital investments into the replacement and renovation of existing electric power stations. The worn-out electric network suffers sizable losses of electricity, thereby deepening the gap between demand and supply in some districts, including Samarkand province.
Since Uzbekistan boasts the abundance of intensive sunshine, the solar power station, due to be erected in the region, will exploit up-to-date photoelectric technology. It will enable the Uzbek government to broaden the exploitation of renewable sources of energy in the power sector. It is planned to meet the nation’s power needs by using renewable sources of energy, including solar power.
The project stipulates the organization of training sessions and provision of other kinds of backing to the State Joint-Stock Company, Uzbekenergo, in a move to raise the latter’s potential for operating electric power stations and other solar plants. The Asian Development Bank will also assist other partners in their efforts to develop their potentialities in the field, in particular the International Solar Power Institute. A given organization will enable the Republic of Uzbekistan to attain all the aims in the process of its formation as a regional center of knowledge and technology in the solar power domain.
The ADB renders assistance out of the Bank’s own resources. Local funding, at the rate of US $200 million, will be provided by the Foundation for Reconstruction and Development of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the State Joint-Stock Company, Uzbekenergo. The project will be implemented within 5 yearsand finalized in March 2019.
Founded in September 2012, the Asian Solar Energy Forum promotes the exchange of knowledge in the field of solar power in the Asia-Pacific region. Its participators include government representatives, project developers, manufacturers of equipment, borrowers, officials from international financial institutions and suchlike. The Forum aims to investigate the latest technological trends and potential for developing solar power engineering in the region. The Asian Development Bank is a co-organizer of a given forum, which was held in Central Asia for the first time. And for the first time it was attended by delegations from the African continent and representatives of international financial institutions. The Forum urged Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan, the ADB member states with abundant reserves of solar-energy resources in the region, to develop their potential in this sector.
In 2012, the State Joint-StockCompany, Uzbekenergo also started designing a 50 MWt solar power station to be built in Tashkent province, with an annual capacity to generate 110 million kWt/h of electricity. The project, worth US $250 million, will be financed by a credit facility from the Asian Development Bank (to the tune of US $90 million) and by the Uzbek side’s own funds. In February 2012, the government of Uzbekistan and the ADB signed a memorandum on cooperation in the implementation of solar power projects. An international solar-power institute set up in the Republic within the framework of this document will work on the development of projects in solar power engineering. In particular, there are plans to prepare technical and economic assessments for 6 such projects in Uzbekistan, with a total specified capacity of 2 GVt. The country’s solar-energy potential is estimated at 50.9 billion tons in oil equivalent, or 99.7 per cent of all the renewable sources of power studied up to now.
(Source: “Business partner.uz” newspaper)