On December 19, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, along with a document on state support for the production of electric vehicles, signed a resolution on expanding the infrastructure for charging electric vehicles.
The document highlighted that the shortage of charging stations is holding back the mass transition to electric cars. In addition, there is no regulation for sale of electricity by businesses through charging stations.
According to the resolution, from January 1, 2024, all newly built shopping and business centers, entertainment and recreation venues, gas stations, hotels and infrastructure facilities along international and national highways will be equipped with charging stations without fail. The Ministry of Construction was instructed to develop the necessary technical conditions for this.
Before 2025, the number of charging stations will be required to reach 2,500. Now there are about 70 stations in Uzbekistan, and another 30 are planned to be launched by the end of the year.
In 2023, 1,400 land plots will be auctioned for installation of charging stations. In addition, the company "Provincial Electric Networks" must install 500 stations along the roads. In 2023-2024, free plots of territories of state bodies and organizations should be put up for auction through the K-savdo system to install at least 500 charging stations.
Starting January 1, 2023, businesses will be entitled to sell electricity through their charging stations. At the same time, the service tariff will be set by them independently, regardless of the electricity tariffs approved in the country.
From January 1, 2023 to January 1, 2026:
- land plots under charging stations and car parks where they are installed will be relieved from paying land tax, and charging stations will be relieved from property tax. It is expected that due to this benefit, a total of 2.4 billion soums will remain at the disposal of businesses next year, and 9.4 billion soums in 2024;
- businesses whose main activity is the provision of charging station services will be relieved from income tax, and their profit from the provision of this service is exempt from value added tax;
- imported charging stations, their components and technological devices for service infrastructure are exempt from customs duties.
Governors of provinces and the Ministry of Energy have been instructed to install at least 1 (4-channel) charging station with a capacity of 60 kW at petrol, diesel and gas filling stations by December 1, 2023. Today, there are 4,652 gas stations in the country, including 1,443 for compressed gas, 983 for liquefied gas, and 2,226 for gasoline and diesel.
The Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Ministry was instructed to complete the activities to create the Green Economy Development Fund by July 1, 2023.