Development finance assessment

Foreign Direct Investment
FDI inflows during the past five years have been volatile (Figure 20). For 2019 they reached 
a record 3.9 percent of GDP, equal to USD 2.3 billion. According to the 2020 Citizen Budget, 
the GoU planned to attract USD 4.0 billion worth of FDI, to be directed to the implementation 
of large projects in industry, agriculture and infrastructure development. Already prior to the 
COVID-19 pandemic this was an ambitious FDI target considering the slow pick-up of FDI in 
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Anecdotal reference suggests that although FOREX reform has eliminated the black FOREX market, it did not 
eliminate fully the informal lending market. 
Figure 20 FDI inflows, Uzbekistan
0,0%
0,5%
1,0%
1,5%
2,0%
2,5%
3,0%
3,5%
4,0%
4,5%
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
(e)
2020
(p)
2021
(p)
2022
(p)
2023
(p)
2024
(p)
2025
(p)
percent
o
f
GDP
Source: World Bank IDS and IMF from 2017 onwards. 

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DIMENSION 1: 
ASSESSING DEVELOPMENT FINANCE FLOWS
previous years. Reflecting the COVID-19 impact on FDI, the IMF (2020) projects FDI inflows 
over the medium-term to remain below USD 3.0 billion. GOU experts suggest that the size 
and the scale of Uzbekistan’s economy requires about USD 12 billion of FDI every year (US 
Depart. of State, 2019)
The country’s vast and diverse resource wealth is driving most of this resource-seeking FDI. In 
2018, the State Committee for Geology put the sum value of all the country’s mineral and energy 
resources at USD 5.7 trillion
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. Traditionally the energy sector has been the best performer in 
attracting FDIs, resulting in an inter-regional imbalance of investments
65
. With the opening of the 
country, some other branches of economies may become attractive, such as agriculture, tourism. 
The Russian Federation (55 percent of total FDI), the Republic of Korea, China and Germany, 
and recently Canada, are the major FDI investors. The Republic of Korea shows interest in the 
development of financial/capital market in Uzbekistan, and it is plausible to assume that they 
would be interested not only in FDIs, but also foreign portfolio investments.