Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Mikheil Kavelashvili met at the Orbeliani Palace on 2 July; the state visit runs through today. Kavelashvili announced the strategic partnership and presented Mirziyoyev with Georgia’s highest award. A joint business forum runs alongside, with projects discussed in industry, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, agriculture, energy and IT.
The trade base is modest: about $270 million in 2025, against $4.1 billion of Uzbek trade with China in the first quarter of this year alone. The ceremony is running well ahead of the commerce.
Geography explains the gap. Georgia is the western gate of the Middle Corridor, and Uzbekistan’s cargo is moving: transit through the country grew 35% in the first half of the year, and Tashkent wants Black Sea outlets that do not depend on Russian goodwill.
Within one week, Georgia has upgraded relations with Central Asia’s two largest economies.
For Tbilisi the logic runs in reverse. The EU accession track is frozen and relations with Brussels are strained; east-west transit is the economy Georgia can build on its own terms. Kazakhstan’s strategic partnership, signed on 30 June, carried port and corridor language; the Uzbek package points the same way.
Watch what converts. A declaration moves no freight. The tests are concrete: through-tariffs on the trans-Caspian leg, terminal stakes for Uzbek or Kazakh operators in Georgian ports, and scheduled block trains with published timetables.