The government fully or partially owns more than 2,500 companies, and 675 of them are under the liquidation process.

The property was confiscated from Ms Karimova, the eldest daughter of the former president, who ruled the country for 27 years until his death in 2016.

State-owned Ukreximbank will use the funds for loans to SMEs, in particular by offering sub-loans of a longer maturity than that currently available on the market.

Uzbekistan, the world’s 8th largest cotton producer and the 11th largest exporter, produced 3.8 million tonnes of cotton in 2020 in over 1,3 million hectares of land.