Russian Premier on First Trip to Tashkent

Russian Prime Minster Mikhail Fradkov will pay his first visit to Uzbekistan on March 5. Observers say that two main issues will be on the agenda – increasing Russia’s gas purchases from Uzbekistan and renegotiating the price of the Ilyushin-76 airliners assembled at the Tashkent aircraft factory, which Moscow thinks cost too much. Russia’s Gazprom company recently agreed to buy 13 billion cubic metres of Uzbek gas a year instead of the current nine billion.