MOSCOW, April 5. /TASS/. Uzbekistan will scale up gas supplies to Russia on the basis of a five-year contract, President of the country Shavkat Mirziyoyev said on Wednesday during talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Furthermore, the country is interested in exploration to be done by Russian companies, he added.

"The case in point is significant expansion of deliveries of natural gas to Russia on the basis of the five-year contract to be concluded for the first time. We are interested in implementation of promising investment projects, such as exploration and development of perspective projects, establishment of a modern natural gas deep conversion facility in Surkhandarya and Kashkadarya Regions and creation of an oil refinery in Jizzakh Region we have just agreed," the President of Uzbekistan said.