AN ANALYSIS OF THE STRUCTURE OF TRADE BETWEEN CHINA AND UZBEKISTAN

Abstract

As a key hub of the Belt and Road Initiative and an important gateway from Asia to Europe, Uzbekistan is
an important participant in the China-Central Asia Cooperation Mechanism, and China-Uzbekistan economic and trade
cooperation is of increasing economic and strategic significance to the development of both countries. Under the Belt
and Road Initiative and the New Uzbekistan Strategy, economic and trade relations between China and Uzbekistan have
continued to take new leaps forward.
By comprehensively measuring Uzbekistan’s import and export volume, growth rate, bilateral trade commodity structure,
trade openness, export similarity index and Lawrence index, this paper concludes that both Uzbekistan and China have
relatively high levels of trade openness, but Uzbekistan’s economic development is more dependent on foreign trade.
Bilateral trade between Uzbekistan and China has a greater impact on Uzbekistan than on China, while the commodity
structure of Uzbekistan’s exports to China is highly volatile, suggesting that Uzbek goods are relatively uncompetitive in
the Chinese market. Uzbekistan’s imports from China are much larger than its exports to China, and there is some risk
that the trade deficit will widen year by year.