Quality Alchemist (品質煉金術師): Chu Hai College Public Talk on Uzbekistan: On the Reform Path

2019年3月19日星期二

Chu Hai College Public Talk on Uzbekistan: On the Reform Path

Chu Hai College of Higher Education organized a Public Talk named “Uzbekistan: On the Reform Path” on 19^th Mar 2019. Uzbekistan has been considered to be the coming geostrategic hub of the Central and of the Eurasian landmass as a whole. This seminar introduced their economic revitalization that opens the window to Uzbekistan and to the Central Asia. Before the talk, I took a photo with Dr CHAN Man Hung, Thomas (Director, One Belt One Road Research Institute (OBORRI), Chu Hai College of Higher Education) for memory.

It is my first time visited Chu Hai College of Higher Education. The new campus was established in 2016 and its building cost and land were supported by Jockey Club and Government respectively.

The Chu Hai College of Higher Education founded in 1947. The name of the College was explained in the following diagram.

Prof. Lap-Chee Tsui (President, ASHK) had serviced in the college in 1972.

I recognized a new friend Mr. Stephen Chan (Deputy President, The Association of Hong Kong Accountants (AHKA); Chief Consultant, Trinity-C Management Ltd.).

In the beginning, Prof. CF Lee (President, Chu Hai College of Higher Education) gave a welcome speech.

Then Dr Thomas Chan introduced the guest speaker Prof. Komiljon Karimov who has been Rector of Westminster International University in Tashkent from Mar 2015. He had worked at UN agencies such as UNESCO and UNICEF where he dealt with the development challenges in the area of education and healthcare. He has an extensive research interest and experience in the field of international education. Prof. Karimov holds a PhD degree in Political Science and International Relations from the University of World Economy and Diplomacy in Tashkent.

Prof. Komiljon Karimov (Rector, Westminster International University in Tashkent) presented the topic “Uzbekistan: On the Reform Path”.

Firstly, he briefed some key information about Uzbekistan including area, population (33M), Capital, Urbanization rate and Languages. In Uzbekistan, they used seven languages but two most common languages are Uzbek and Russian. Uzbekistan is double landlocked country (when it is surrounded entirely by one or more landlocked countries). It is because Uzbekistan in Central Asia surrounded by Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

Then Prof. Karimov briefed the Silk Road

Some facts and figures about mineral resource ranking in the world such as Natural gas, Gold, Copper, Uranium and Coal were mentioned.

Some visa-free regime were stated. I remembered that it needed on-site visa in 2012 and Prof. Azat helped us to arrange all information to policy station before this on-site visa.

After that Prof. Karimov introduced the Development Strategy for 2017-2021 start of 5 priority reforms included “Development of State Governance”, “Rule of Law & Legal Reforms”, “Development and Liberalization of Economy”, “Development of Social Sphere” and “Security, Religious Tolerance and Interethnic Harmony, Foreign Policy”.

Some achieved results were demonstrated as follows. There are three priority themes for economic reforms and they are “Improve Resource Availability”, “Reduce Business Costs” and “Strengthen Governance”. “Foreign Partnership of Higher Education”, “Support the Publication” and “Enhancing University Ranking”.

The following ranking demonstrated massive improvements in Uzbekistan (190 countries ranked), especially, Starting a Business ranked 11 in 2018. (Roadmap - http://roadmap.mf.uz/?page_id=533#news_last )

And then Prof. Karimov briefed the higher education in Uzbekistan and there were 91 higher education institutions (23 of them are Universities).

There are five priority areas for the development of higher education included “Investment attractiveness”, “Self-financing”, “

Finally, Prof. Karimov said they had invited many distinguished speaker at WIUT.

Lastly, he showed a video to introduce Uzbekistan.

At the end, Q&A session was held and many scholar asked different questions. I had asked the currency and photo in MTR (underground train) limitation. Prof. Karimov told me that it had changed much. US$1 is equal to about $8,XXX.00 Uzs. Now, people allowed to take photo in the train underground.