(TASHKENT) - Uzbek President Islam Karimov on Monday said he regreted the lack of European investment in his country, while boasting of a rosy economic outlook at talks with Latvian President Valdis Zatlers.

"Uzbekistan doesn't need a campaign to attract foreign investment. But to our great regret investment is coming from Asia not Europe," Karimov said at a news conference with Zatlers, on a rare visit here by a European Union leader.

Zatlers was accompanied by more than 90 Latvian businesspeople and was the first EU head of state to visit since the 2005 Andijan uprising, in which the Uzbek authorities' conduct was heavily criticised by the West and human rights groups.

The Uzbek leader said his country's economy had grown by over nine percent in each of the past two years, with growth in 2007 reaching 9.6 percent.

Breaking a taboo on discussing the country's gold and foreign currency reserves, Karimov said these reserves were growing by three billion dollars (2.2 billion euros) annually.

"This year we expect our gold and foreign currency reserves to increase by 3.4 billion dollars," said Karimov, without stating the total size of the reserves, which have never been revealed.

Karimov said Uzbekistan was attracting over a billion dollars in foreign direct investment annually and such investment was expected to equal 1.65 billion dollars next year.

The EU imposed economic sanctions on Uzbekistan, including an arms embargo and a visa ban on top officials, after Tashkent rejected a demand for an international probe into the Andijan violence.

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