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12
DEVELOPMENT FINANCE ASSESSMENT FOR THE REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT CONTEXT
This section summarizes Uzbekistan’s sustainable development progress and considers 
the known risks and challenges towards accelerating progress. At the time of writing, the 
full extent of the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic on Uzbekistan’s impressive socio-economic 
progress was still to be appraised. Undoubtedly, COVID-19 presents the major threat to 
achieving the 2030 Agenda. This section’s analysis therefore relies on the latest available 
data and figures from national and international sources.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
In 2017, the authorities embarked on a wave of economic reforms to transition toward 
a more open and market-based economy. The key policy measures included liberalizing 
prices, trade tariffs, and the exchange rate, opening the economy to private initiative and 
international trade, reducing the rates of direct taxes on businesses and households, reducing 
the role of the government in economic activity, and commencing civil service reform (WB, 
2019). 
Real GDP growth accelerated slightly in 2019 to 5.6 percent (See Table 2), supported by a 
34 percent year-on-year increase in investment, largely driven by direct lending to SOEs, and 
growth in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors (OECD, 2020). The COVID-19 crisis has 
slowed down growth significantly in 2020, however, to an expected 1.5 percent, according to 
the latest available IMF data
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