The number of companies with foreign capital in Uzbekistan reached 12,239 as of April 1, the State Statistics Committee said.

The committee did not provide a comparison, although experts said the figure exceeded the same indicator for the last year.

More than 5,000 of all companies with foreign capital are joint-ventures, while the rest are foreign entities. Companies from Russia, China and Turkey lead the list.

The majority of the companies with foreign capital operate in industry, construction and agricultural sectors.

The Central Asian country is making efforts to improve its investment climate after more than two decades of economic isolation. The closed, autarkic system viewed most foreign investments as a threat. That ended when Islam Karimov, who had led Uzbekistan since before the Soviet breakup, died in 2016.

Now-President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who was once a prime minister under Karimov, has made attracting foreign investors one of his top priorities in an increasingly ambitious plan to open Uzbekistan to the outside world.