Minister of Defense of Russia Segery Shoygu and Minister of Defense of Uzbekistan Kabul Berdiev exchanged instruments of ratification of the Agreement on military-technical cooperation between the countries, UzDaily.com reported.

According to General of the Army Sergey Shoygu, Russia and Uzbekistan made another step forward to strengthen relations between the Armed Forces of two countries.

In his turn, Uzbek Defense Minister Kabul Berdiyev highly assessed the success of Russia-Uzbekistan military technical cooperation and invited Sergey Shoygu to visit Uzbekistan.

Uzbekistan and Russian signed an agreement on development of military-technical cooperation and a plan of bilateral cooperation between defense bodies for 2017. The documents were signed in Moscow on 29 November 2016.

The agreement aims at deepening cooperation as well as joining efforts to improve each other’s military hardware and technology and working on both countries’ scientific, technical and industrial capacities related to military, security, law enforcement and special forces applications.

Within the agreement, the sides can supply military equipment and tools each other, provide maintenance services to military equipment, exchange information in military-technical sphere, etc.

Uzbekistan and Russian can create joint ventures and capacities on development, production, repair, modernization and utilization of military products. The agreement may lead to the creation of joint military-technical programs, the signing of contracts between the two sides’ relevant agencies and holding consultations with the involvement of experts from both Russia and Uzbekistan.

Russia ratified the agreement in April, while Uzbekistan – in March 2017.