Uzbekistan Quality Job Creation as a Cornerstone for Sustainable Economic Growth

Private Sector Development and Access to Finance
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Collateral registry.
A secured lending legal system can help private businesses 
to use movable assets as collateral for loans. Such a system includes creating 
an online collateral registry. Many developing Asian countries still lack a legal 
framework for secured transactions or movable asset financing. Broadening 
the range of “pledgeable” assets, including machinery, equipment, inventory, 
receivables, and intellectual property rights, will enhance enterprises’ access 
to finance. This is especially important for SMEs, which typically do not have 
real estate to use as security for loans. In Uzbekistan, a mortgage registry 
exits under the Pledge Register Law (2013). The pledge register is a single 
information database containing records on the rights of creditors to debtors’ 
property. The Pledge Register Law does not specify pledgeable movable assets, 
and this law is to be replaced with the rules of the international agreement 
once it is established (Article 2). The Secured Transaction Law was drafted in 
2016, supported by the International Finance Corporation, but it had yet to 
be enacted as of March 2019. Thus a collateral registry has yet to be created
in Uzbekistan.
Credit guarantees.
Credit guarantees support SMEs’ access to finance. 
Public credit guarantees are provided through various channels including a 
specialized guarantee facility (as in the Philippines), regional credit guarantee 
institutions (as in Indonesia), and portfolio guarantee schemes (as in 
Thailand). Credit guarantee institutions have the advantage of being able to 
store SME client data for assessment. Based on such data, an optimal credit 
guarantee ratio can be developed, a flexibly adjusted rate according to the 
level of a bank’s financial soundness and the macroeconomic environment. 
In Uzbekistan, the State Fund for Support of Development of 
Entrepreneurship Activity was established in 2017. It provides 50% partial 
credit guarantees not exceeding $250,000, targeting small businesses as