The President signed the Additional measures to support participants in international trade Decree on Tuesday. According to the document, from April 1 of this year:

a) until April 1, 2023:

- domestic enterprises (their authorized representatives) when exporting products with high added value to the EU countries shall be granted subsidies to compensate for transportation costs of up to 70 percent;

- when exporting high value-added products exported to neighboring states, subsidies are provided to compensate for transportation costs in the amount of up to 50 percent;

b) the costs associated with the accreditation of conformity assessment bodies by an accreditation body that is a member of international organizations ILAC/IAF shall be compensated by the Export Promotion Agency;

c) the prepayment size required when business entities export goods (except for special types of goods), works and services on the basis of invoices without a contract shall be reduced from 100 percent to 50 percent.

The Government Commission on Foreign Trade, Investments, Development of Local Industry and Technical Regulation was instructed to:

· Within two weeks, the list of high value-added products shall be approved, the export of which provides for subsidies to compensate for transportation costs, and ensure its regular publication on the exporter support portal;

· Establish constant oversight over targeted and effective spending of the funds of the Export Support Fund.

Also, the procedure for prohibiting the use of waivers on customs payments during customs clearance of goods that are in the customs warehouse regime for more than six months shall be cancelled.

The government commission was entitled to extend the maturity of loans allocated from the Export Support Fund to finance pre-export and export-related trade operations for an additional six months in accordance with the requests of domestic exporting enterprises. At the same time, it was established that a change in the maturity of these loans will not be considered by the Central Bank as assets whose lending conditions have been revised.

In order to further support youth entrepreneurship, including stimulating activities for the production of export-oriented products and the provision of services based on innovative technologies, loans shall be allowed of up to 500 thousand US dollars by the Young Entrepreneurs Support Fund based on the decisions of the government commission.

In addition, the Ministry of Investments and Foreign Trade was entitled to introduce, until January 1, 2023, temporary mechanisms for regulating international trade operations of the Republic of Uzbekistan based on the conclusion of the government commission. While, it is important to provide for measures to stimulate the export of finished products, to prevent cases of artificially inflating the cost of import contracts, the penetration of low-quality products into the domestic market, and cases of smuggling.

Uztrade and Uzsanoatexport joint-stock companies will receive 10 million US dollars at the expense of the Export Support Fund in order to provide foreign trade companies with working capital.