On April 17-19, 2019 in the city of Tashkent was held the second meeting of the Uzbek-Russian working group (here in after - the Working Group) on the implementation of the Agreement which was signed on April 11 2013 between the State Committee on Ecology and environmental protection state committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation.

The Uzbek delegation was represented by Utayev Uktam Choriyevich, Deputy Chairman of the State Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan on ecology and environmental protection.

The Russian delegation is Inamov Nuritdin Rakhmanzhanovich, Director of the Department of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation.

As part of the work of the Working Group, for Russian experts, in order to familiarize themselves with the activities, a visit was organized to the Center for Specialized Analytical Control in the Field of Environmental Protection, State Unitary Enterprise State Environmental Certification under the State Committee on Ecology of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the Tashkent City Department of Ecology and Environment.

During the meeting of the Working Group, the experts discussed promising areas of bilateral cooperation, informed each other about the activities to improve the national legislation in the field of environmental protection.

Russian representatives spoke about the introduction of a new waste management system in Russia since 2019, as well as the implementation of the national project "Ecology", which includes 11 federal projects aimed at improving the environmental situation in the country in five areas: "water", " air, waste, biodiversity and best available technologies.

Uzbek specialists informed about the measures taken to improve the regulatory and methodological framework, the new regulations adopted in the field of ecology and nature conservation.

In accordance with the Program of the Working Group, information was exchanged in the following areas:

• waste management;

• protection, management and rational use of water resources;

• preservation of biodiversity and development of the system of specially protected natural territories (PAs) / protected natural territories (protected areas);

• air protection;

• environmental control and environmental education, environmental pollution reduction and rational use of natural resources.