The improvement of the investment climate is "an organic component of Uzbekistan's foreign and foreign economic policy," Sadik Safayev, the first deputy chairman of the Senate, said at the maiden meeting of the newly launched International Press Club in Tashkent on Friday.
In Uzbekistan, quite a lot has been done to improve the business environment, however, the Senator admitted: "We have failed to create a truly competitive investment climate".
Totally new approaches are required to improve Uzbekistan’s investment attractiveness, Safaev said, quoting Albert Einstein who is said to have said that “it is impossible to expect different results doing the same thing over and over again”.
Senator cited the priority measures that are required to improve the country’s investment attractiveness. "First of all, it is necessary to liberalize the currency market. The measures are currently being taken to this end, with necessary evaluations being undertaken. The most important is that there is a clear understanding that this should be accomplished and there is political will aimed at this. The main issue now is to minimize the negative impact on households”.
“The currency liberalization, just as the economic liberalization, always has a price to pay. However, a delay or lack of reforms has a much higher price”, Safayev noted.
Secondly, Sadyk Safaev underscored the importance of improving the Uzbek banking system. According to him, the Uzbek banks failed to become a truly effective tool for raising funds for their further investment into the economy.
Thirdly, Uzbekistan must develop its financial markets. “Unfortunately, we don’t have properly functioning financial markets as the means for internal investments, while there is a huge potential,” he admitted.
Fourthly, the leadership of Uzbekistan has done a lot for territorial development. Howver Safaev admitted to the country having uneven distribution of investment flows. According to him, the investments are concentrated mainly in four provinces. He added that this was mainly due to lack of skilled labour and that it was crucial to change the status of local authorities.
"We require from them (local authorities) to attract investments, but the question arises: what powers do they have for this, how can they achiev this? It is therefore necessary to amend the Local Authorities Law, also, ensure uninterrupted electricity supply and access to ICT which still remain a problem. Without these, it is impossible to attract investments”, he said.
Senator noted that the leadership of Uzbekistan has set out 14 areas aimed at creating favourable investment climate, and that currently the work is underway on their implementation, he added.
Sadyk Safaev said that the UNDP and World Bank had assisted in the realization of a new “Investment climate of Uzbekistan Project”. The project will help to solve three packages of issues, including amending legislation, regulatory policy (customs, tax policy and immigration policy) and various scenarios of the currency market liberalization.
Safaev underscored that it was important to study the negative and positive experience of other countries to familiarize them with those, who will carry out these reforms in Uzbekistan.
