TASHKENT
Uzbekistan plans to allocate $150 million from the state coffers for business development and creating a favourable investment climate in the country’s Surkhandarya region. which is located at the border with Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan.
Allocation of the funds was ordered by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, once a prime minister under former President Islam Karimov, who since coming to power in 2016 had made attracting foreign investors one of his top priorities in an increasingly ambitious plan to open Uzbekistan to the outside world.
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.
Funds will be provided by the Fund for Reconstruction and Development of Uzbekistan.
In particular, $100 million will be directed to family business projects. Another $50 million will be allocated to Uzbekistan’s National Bank as well as other banks to finance initiatives for the production of import-substituting products.
The government plans to attract an additional $50 million from international financial institutions in order to finance the creation of modern greenhouses in the region.
The Surkhandarya region’s natural resources include petroleum, natural gas and coal, while light industry in the region includes cotton ginning and food processing. The region has a well-developed transport infrastructure with a 300-km railway and 2,700 km of surfaced roads.
Development of the regions is a part of a major reform plan in Central Asian country, which plans to increase the economic growth of the country by 1.5 times, thus doubling Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to at least $100 billion in the next five years.
Uzbekistan’s GDP volume was at around $54 billion in 2020, according to the State Statistics Committee.