Uzbekistan Quality Job Creation as a Cornerstone for Sustainable Economic Growth

Figure 2.12: Business Environment Obstacle for Firms, Uzbekistan, 
2013
0.1
0.2
0.7
0.8
1.3
1.5
3.3
3.5
5.0
6.7
12.9
31.6
32.4
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Corruption
Political instability
Court system
Tax administration
Transport
License
Workers’ skills
Access to land
Customs/trade regulations
Access to finance
Tax rates
Informal competition
Electricity
Percent of Firms

---

60
Uzbekistan Quality Job Creation as a Cornerstone for Sustainable Economic Growth
High demand for electricity.
The government’s target of increasing 
manufacturing’s share of GDP from 12% in 2012 to 22% in 2030 would 
involve a large increase in demand. In addition, expected higher household 
incomes will drive purchases of electric appliances and machines such as 
air conditioners, refrigerators, and computers, and thus add to electricity 
consumption. CAREC has forecast electricity demand in 2020 and 2030 
under various scenarios (Figure 2.13). Comparing the demand forecasts with 
CAREC’s own supply forecast from 2012 implies shortages by 2020 in a high-
growth scenario. According to CAREC’s analysis, the thermal power plants 
capacity will diminish to 5.7 GW by 2020. New thermal power plants will add
6 GW of available capacity. Together with hydropower plants, the total 
available capacity is estimated at about 13 GW, which could generate
65.2 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity per year (Table 2.9).
Uzbekenergo provides more optimistic forecasts of power generation—from 
61.7 TWh in 2017, it suggests an increase of 77% by 2020 and four-fold by 
2050. Per capita generation is forecast to increase from about 1,900 kWh in 
2017 to 2,110 kWh in 2020 and to 5,900 kWh in 2050 (Table 2.10). A resolution 
sets an ambitious goal (Table 2.11) of increasing the hydropower generating 
capacity to 2,176 MW in 2020 and 3,038 MW in 2025 by constructing 11 new 
and modernizing 11 existing hydropower plants (Government of Uzbekistan 
2017). Additional capacity of 5,406 MW from thermal and 804 MW from 
renewable energy up to 2030 are in Uzbekenergo’s most recent plan
(Table 2.12). The additional capacity will come from modernizing, rehabilitating, 
and expanding existing power plants, and constructing new ones in Uzbekistan 
during 2017–2030.
TWh= terawatt-hour. 
Source: Grunwald (2012).