On February 26, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev chaired a government meeting on reforming the state-owned Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Complex (NMMC), the presidential press service said.
Shavkat Mirziyoyev touched upon the ways to improve the structure of NMMC, ensuring its corporate transparency, compliance of accounting in line with international standards.
He instructed to increase the production volume up to 94 tons by 2026, for which US$ 4 billion worth of 40 projects need to be implemented, including the development of a new field with a project cost of US$ 525 million.
Shavkat Mirziyoyev emphasized the importance of evaluation based on international standards and increasing the company’s reserves to 3.7 thousand tons.
The State Committee for Geology and the Ministry of Finance were instructed swithch the reserves estimation and financial statements to international standards. Field reserves reports and their condition, as well as data on production projects at NMMC, will be prepared in accordance with the Australian Code (JORC Code).
The meeting also raised the issuance by NMMC of corporate Eurobonds.
The Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Complex extracts gold, uranium, rare metals and produces raw materials for the construction materials industry and machine tool industry. The plant accounts for 10% of all Uzbekistan’s industrial output and 18% of budget revenues. The company employs 58 thousand people.
According to the press service, the Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Complex ranks third among world gold producers in terms of raw materials. However, its capitalization is much less than similar foreign companies.
"At present, the NMMC is valued at US$ 1.3 billion, while the market price of foreign enterprises of this level is around US$ 11 billion," the statement said.
In view of this, the NMMC development program until 2026 is now being implemented. Within its framework, in 2017-2019, 8 facilities worth US$ 1.2 billion were commissioned. As a result, over the past three years, gold production increased by 2.5%, silver - by 37%.
