A decline in the share of US securities and an increase in the share of gold in global reserves create additional challenges for Uzbekistan. On September 18, Obid Khakimov, the President's advisor on economic policy, stated this at the International Forum on State Asset Management.

What's the duality

"For countries like Uzbekistan, which produces gold and where gold is part of the money creation process, this creates a double challenge," the advisor noted.

The logic is as follows. A country simultaneously acts as a producer of the metal and a holder of it in reserves. When prices rise, both sides benefit — both export revenues and reserve values increase.

But the risk doubles too: a price decline hits the budget through exports and reserves through revaluation at the same time. Diversifying this risk is harder than for countries that only mine the metal or only store it.

Economy grew 2.5 times in ten years

GDP increased from approximately $70 billion to $150 billion.

Goals changed twice: in 2022, the task was set to achieve upper-middle-income country status by 2030, later the president set a target of $300 billion GDP by the same date with a projected population of 40-41 million people.

"We need to significantly increase our gross domestic product in the next five years," Khakimov said.

What drove results

Key growth factors named by the advisor:

  • currency market liberalization — after the 2017 reform, foreign investment volume grew nearly five-fold;
  • tax reform — the number of taxes reduced from 13 to 9, VAT rate lowered from 20% to 12%, over 160 licenses abolished;
  • WTO integration — average effective tariffs reduced from 15.3% to 7.5%, duties zeroed on more than 8,000 product categories;
  • privatization — assets worth over $7 billion sold to the private sector, including 66 companies.

Capital market

Since 2019, international bonds issued exceeded $16 billion, and total foreign direct investment attracted surpassed $109 billion.

The advisor named the development of market financing among key areas for further growth. For private investors, this means gradual expansion of available instruments — from stocks of public companies to new types of bonds.

This material is for informational purposes and is not an investment recommendation.