The state was able to up its share stake by restructuring the enterprises' debts owed to republican budgets and issuing additional shares to cover the sum of these debts.

As of January 1 of 2000, the state's share in enterprises producing alcohol output totaled 25% and company employees controlled 26%. Furthermore, another 25% of shares belonged to foreign investors and 24% to private shareholders.

Presently, foreigners' stake in charter capital remains unchanged at 25%. In particular, a 25% stake in Shokhrud (Bukhara region) belongs to the German company LRS PLANUNG & Technologie GmbH, a similar stake in the Sirdari winery (Syrdarya region) belongs to Britain's Cameron company, and a 25% stake in Kombinat Tashkentvino (Tashkent) belongs to Switzerland's TSI Associates S.A.

The stake held by employees and small businesses in the charter capital of the holding's daughter companies fell to 24%.

Uzplodovoschvinprom, Uzbekistan's leading producer of fruit/vegetable and alcohol output, was established in 1997. The holding consists of 42 open joint stock companies, of which 23 produce wine and vodka output, as well as spirit.

In 2000, the holding's enterprises plan to turn out 52 million liters of grape wine (58 million liters a year ago), 71.9 million liters of vodka and liquor output (71.68 million liters), 1 million liters of cognac (570,000 liters) and 6.42 million bottles of sparkling wine (6.42 million bottles).

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The results of the last academic year as well as the experience several military units gained through their involvement in blockading and destroying groups of international terrorists and extremists, have shown that the organization of military training faces many problems, and that a urgent need has arisen to reconsider the approach to the organization of the training process in units and subdivisions. What priority tasks face the command staff today and what needs to be done in order to conduct planned training, taking into account the shortcomings that occurred during the last academic year; to ensure that security measures are taken; to thoroughly master and maintain military hardware; and to constantly improve the military skills of the personnel?

Since the early days of their formation the armed forces of independent Uzbekistan have been carrying out military training of personnel in line with well-thought-out plans. There are fixed hours for each discipline taught, with each training exercise arranged in terms of time and place.

This requires that training be further improved, as well as equipment support to military units. Training sites must be a focus of the attention of the relevant commanders and chiefs.

At the same time we are told that senior officers in charge of the Chirchik training centre [in central Tashkent Region] have been conscientiously maintaining and serving their centre, whereas this does not seem to be the case at the Samarkand training centre. As a result, the latter's division centres have been neglected for a long time.

The training given to servicemen to fight in mountain conditions requires fundamental reconsideration. Experienced instructors are needed for mountain combat training and security measures should be taken when holding such training exercises

Technical preparation and the training of drivers is no less important in ensuring high combat readiness in military units and subdivisions. New conscripts who even received training in driving at driver training schools of the Vatanparvar defence support organization are not given enough time to practice driving. As a rule, they practise driving in flat terrain where vehicles are handled much more easily than in the mountains.

Drivers' lack of skill in handling vehicles in mountainous terrain is to blame for a considerable proportion of accidents in the mountains involving vehicles. To avoid traffic accidents, military units and driver training schools of the Vatanparvar defence support organization should be equipped with the relevant equipment. After acquiring the basic skills in handling vehicles by practising on a training machine, every driver must hone them also in mountainous terrain, starting with the less difficult roads.

Everything is important in raising the quality of military training: planning, training commanders, equipping classrooms, improving training and material support, and methodological skills.

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he OSCE experts participated in a workshop for reps of the Oliy Majlis Authorized Institution for Human Rights, courts and law-enforcement bodies, NGOs and the mass media. The main aim of the workshop was to examine the international practice of interaction of law-enforcement bodies and courts to provide fair court decisions and extra-juridical protection. The OSCE experts were received in the Oliy Majlis of Uzbekistan, Committee on Democratic Institutions, NGO, and institutions of local government. Meetings were conducted in the Court and Bar Associations, where the issues of interactions between the Ombudsman institution and the NGO in a single legal field were considered, and the future prospects for joint actions of OSCE and Uzbekistan NGO were outlined.

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recent conference in Tashkent on desertification said that the area of deserts in Central Asia increased between 1960 and 1990 by 100,000 sq.km. No information was available for the last 10 years, however, the problem still exists.

Glaciologists forecast that the volume of our water resources will decrease by another 30 per cent by 2020. However, this is not the final assessment yet. By 2050 Uzbekistan's population would reach 50m, and that it was important to learn how to use water rationally.

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azakhstan signed a contract to buy 820m cubic metres of gas from Uzbekistan at a sitting of the [Kazakh-Uzbek] intergovernmental commission in Astana today, First Deputy Prime Minister Danyal Akhmetov told a news conference the same day.

According to him, this amount of gas will be enough to meet only half of the republic's demand for Uzbek gas, but it will help avoid a gas supply crisis in the country's southern Regions.

Akhmetov said that Kazakhstan would pay 50 dollars per 1,000 cu.m. of Uzbek gas from 1 January 2001, against 35 dollars before.

He denied reports that the recent talks in Uzbekistan on gas supplies to Kazakhstan had failed. "I cannot say that the talks were unsuccessful," Akhmetov said.

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He said that Kazakhtelekom, the KTZ and the Uzbek side would discuss the mechanism on paying the debts within the next two months, and the debts are expected to be settled in the first quarter of 2001.

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