Uzbekistan Diagnostic Assessing Progress and Challenges in

1. REFORM APPROACH AND RISKS
Since late-2016, Uzbekistan has fundamentally changed. It has embarked on reforms 
aimed at supporting the private sector. While the roll out of these reforms was met with less 
resistance than anticipated, transition is still challenging, not least because of the 
magnitude of the task and the scarcity of qualified personnel.
There was increasingly a widespread perception in the society in recent years in 
Uzbekistan that the economic model, which had evolved over the previous 20 years, had 
outlived its usefulness.
President Mirziyoyev’s February 2017 decree “Strategy of action” 
provided a blueprint for reforms.
 
The decree linked the need to liberalise the economy to 
reform of the administrative and judicial systems. It lists the following as key pillars for 
economic reform:

Reducing the state's presence in the economy,

Strengthening the rights and the role of the private sector,

Stimulating the development of small business and private entrepreneurship, and 
attracting foreign investment,

Improving the investment climate,

Improving relations and cooperation with the neighbouring countries in the region. 
Major steps towards delivering on these reforms have been taken
, among them:

The sum enjoys free current account convertibility since of September 2017.

The state's influence in non-strategic companies has been reduced, making it 
proportional to the state's shareholding. 

An anti-corruption law has been adopted. 

Non-scheduled inspections of companies have been limited by law and one-stop 
shops for business have been introduced.

Tax reform has begun. 

Several Free Economic Zones have been created. 

A Foreign Investor Council is being considered. 

The government is working on new legislation on public-private partnerships and 
SMEs and on improvements to the law on state procurement.

The way state investment programmes have been designed is being overhauled. 
The progress made is acknowledged by the World Bank’s 2018 Doing Business report: 
Uzbekistan is mentioned among the 10 best performing countries in 2018, ranked 74th out of 
190 countries, up by 13 places from the previous year.