Uzbek 'Vremya i My' newspaper
November 8

A constructive meeting took place at the Ministry of Macroeconomics and Statistics on 4 November, participants say. Foreign investors feel comfortable about the Uzbek authorities' policy, they also welcome reforming the currency and think that the plan for liberalizing the economy is "integral and complete". All this allows us to forecast the volume of investments not only a year ahead but for the following three years as well. The chairman of the board, deputy prime minister and minister of macroeconomics and statistics, Rustam Azimov, informed the participants in the meeting that in line with a draft programme for 2003-2005 there are plans to raise the real volume of capital investment from all sources of financing by four per cent annually. It is expected that the implementation of the investment programme will result in an increase in GDP of not less than two per cent per year.

The proportion of capital investments in GDP will be an average of 24 per cent. It is expected to achieve the increase due to extra growth in the volume of non-centralized investments, the share of which in the total volume of investments will grow from 47.9 per cent this year to 58.5 per cent by 2005, mainly by increasing direct foreign investments, credits from commercial banks and money received from enterprises and the public.

It is expected that the share of direct foreign investment and credits in the structure of capital investment in 2003 will be increased by almost twofold against expectations on the results of the current year. In all 109 priority projects worth 3.6bn dollars, mainly in the oil and gas and textile fields, form the basis of the investment programme for 2003-2005. Part of these projects are at different phases of implementation. Of this list 38 projects are being implemented with money received from direct foreign investments worth 725m dollars.

The newspaper has already reported that the government plans to toughen requirements for presenting state guarantees for external loans for the implementation of investment projects, including projects with foreign capital, in order to maintain the country's good credit reputation.

According to reports from the World Bank the volume of Uzbekistan's foreign debts by the end of 2001 was 4.5bn dollars against 4.3bn dollars in 2000, which was 61.8 per cent of the total volume of GDP. According to assessments made by the World Bank last year Uzbekistan serviced 929m dollars of its external debt against 904m dollars in 2000.

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