On 17 August, the Ministry of Finance of Uzbekistan hosted a roundtable meeting, which discussed rating as a powerful tool for attracting investors.

Thanks to fast economic growth, the financial sector of Uzbekistan is observing dynamic development. The interest of foreign investors in the Uzbek market rises accordingly. Meanwhile, these investors naturally want up-to-date objective information about the market participants, their financial stability, reliability, performance, etc.

The presidents of Russia, China and four Central Asian states attended unprecedented joint military exercises on 17 August, intended as a display of strength before the Western world, Taipei Times reported.

The vast show of firepower at a training ground in the Russian province of Chelyabinsk near the Kazakh border was the culmination of a nine-day exercise dubbed "Peace Mission 2007" that began in northwest China.

It involved some 6,000 personnel from the six countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO): China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.