Interfax
October 22

Uzbekistan's gross domestic product grew by 4% from January-September 2003 while inflation was kept down to 0.3%, Deputy Prime Minister and Economics Minister Rustan Azimov told a Cabinet meeting on Friday.

"The finance and real sectors of the economy has been kept stable. Inflation was reduced from 17.4% in the same period last year to 0.3% while the budget deficit was below 0.1% of the GDP," he said.

Industrial output increased by 5.7%, agricultural output by 4.7%, retail trade by 4.9% and paid services by 6.4%. Investments in fixed assets increased by 2.8%, he said.

As the country's exports increased, the balance of foreign trade was $515 million in Uzbekistan's favor, Azimov said. The country's gold and hard currency reserves have also grown significantly, he said.

Privatization processes have increased with 1,029 enterprises being privatized and nearly 6,500 state-owned structures sold, Azimov said.

The registration procedure for starting businesses has been noticeably streamlined, and comprehensive steps are underway aimed at restructuring and financially remedying low yield and loss making enterprises. As a consequence, over 82% of them have increased their monthly outputs, he said.

On the other hand, a flexible system of privatizing and selling low yield, loss making and economically insolvent enterprises and installations is embedded at a slow rate, Azimov said.

The supply of domestic market goods was also a topic for discussion at the Cabinet meeting. Speakers at the meeting said that the rate of growth of consumer goods production is insufficient so the import reduction had to proceed at a slower pace than originally planned.

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