NMMC, Uzbekistan's main gold producer, accounting for 70 percent of the country's total gold production, said its net profit rose to $716.6 million in 2020.

The EBRD predicted that growth in the South Caucasus and Central Asia in 2021 would be stronger than it initially expected, though it warned a slow pace of vaccinations left the recovery vulnerable to an autumn COVID-19 wave.

The Central Asian nation’s annual revenue from the sale of copper is currently $2.5 billion.

Both leaders welcomed heightened ties with the EU. Baku said it invited the bloc to help with the post-war reconstruction of Azerbaijani lands looted and systematically destroyed during the Armenian occupation.

Uzbekistan ranked 146 out of 180 countries and territories in the 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) by Transparency International.

Uzbekistan will receive a $380 million concessional loan from the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA), and a $43 million loan from the United Nations-backed Green Climate Fund (GFC), the world’s largest climate finance institution.