On June 28, Shavkat Mirziyoyev chaired a government meeting on the development of copper production and setting up of an industrial cluster, the presidential press service said.
Over the past 5 years, the volume of copper production in Uzbekistan has increased by almost 1.5 times and in 2020 reached 148 thousand tons. But the efforts to produce high value-added products is not enough. In particular, about 60% of copper is exported as raw materials, Shavkat Mirziyoyev said at the meeting.
According to international experts, by 2030, global copper demand is expected to grow by 40% due to the growth in the production of electric vehicles, electrical engineering and the development of renewable energy sources, he added.
Uzbekistan's revenues from copper sales are currently US$ 2.5 billion. With an increase in copper production to 400 thousand tons in the next 5 years, this figure, taking into account related industries, may reach US$ 7-8 billion.
To this end, on June 24, the president’s Additional measures for development of mining and metallurgical industry and related industries (not available in the public domain) Decree was adopted. The document sets task to set up a copper industry cluster and a special commission headed by the Prime Minister.
The Uzbek leader stressed the importance of developing a five-year program for expanding geological exploration for non-ferrous and rare metals.
The chairman of the State Committee for Geology and Mineral Resources, Bobir Islamov, said that at the end of 2017, copper reserves topped 16 million tons, but over the past four years, thanks to increased exploration work, the figure increased by 44 million tons.
In addition, the task was set to create a modern design institute with the involvement of leading international companies for the development of design and engineering services in this area.
It was noted that the country needs to establish the production and maintenance of mining equipment and tools.
The President pointed out that certain types of activities at the plants, such as road transport services, digitalization, can be handed over to the private sector on the basis of cooperation and outsourcing.
Shavkat Mirziyoyev instructed to expand the production of high added value products as metal alloys at the Research and production association of rare metals and hard alloys, household appliances, computers, batteries, components for electric vehicles at enterprises under the Uzeltekhsanoat.
The Ministry of Innovation was instructed to develop an industry enterprises development concept in close coordination with research and applied innovation. The importance of training skilled process engineers and workers for each link of the cluster was noted. The importance of establishing cooperation with leading foreign educational institutions for this purpose was emphasized.
He instructed to form a group of skilled specialists and study foreign experience in organizing a copper industry cluster, determine strategic areas for the development of geology and the mining and metallurgical industry with the involvement of international companies.
On June 23, Enter Engineering and Uralmashzavod in a consortium agreed to build a US$ 2 billion copper-processing complex at the Almalyk MMC. Initially, the project was supposed to be implemented by Renaissance Heavy Industries under the control of SFI Management Group, but in February they were excluded from the project.
