Experts from the Institute for Forecasting and Macroeconomic Research (IFMR) analyzed the steps taken in 2017-2022 aimed at developing the services market in Uzbekistan and their findings.
The service sector is significant for economic growth, in terms of jobs (especially for young people) and improving living standards.
In 2022, the share of services to GDP was 41.5%, and compared to 2017, the service sector grew by 1.9 times.
In recent years, important steps have reportedly been taken to support and expedite the development of the industry. In particular:
- E-Government system was further advanced and the total number of e-governmental services reached 368 (in 2019 - 173), 242 of them are intended for businesses;
- business registration was simplified and the number of small businesses increased by 2.2 times (from 128 thousand in 2017 to 325 thousand in 2022);
- the ICT infrastructure was extended by 6 times (the total length of fiber-optic lines increased from 20.3 thousand km in 2017 to 118 thousand km in 2022) and the logistics system by 1.2 times (freight transportation from 1146.2 million tons in 2017 to 1398.9 million tons in 2022).
As a result of incentives for private sector in the development of modern services:
- financial services increased by 5.1 times, attracting private and foreign banks has resulted in increased competitiveness. HHI for assets on December 1, 2022 fell to 1016 (January 1, 2018 was 1520);
- IT services increased by 2.8 times. The capacity of the international data transmission network reached 1,800 Gbps in 2022 (from 64.2 Gbps in 2017);
- educational services increased by 2.5 times. The number of private preschools reached 833 (from 250 in 2017), preschools based on public-private partnership now stands at 1313 (from 250 in 2018), family preschools – 20,676 (from 579 in 2018), non-state schools - 194 (from 39 in 2017), private universities - 55 (from 1 in 2018), foreign universities - 30 (from 7 in 2017);
- health care services have doubled, today there are 7,320 private medical institutions (4,000 in 2017), of which 5,823 are outpatient and 1,497 are inpatient.
