The Ministry of Economic Development and Poverty Reduction has developed and published for discussion the presidential draft Measures to support the organization of production and use of electric vehicles Decree, Norma.uz reported.

The draft proposes to approve a strategy and program for the development of production of electric vehicles in Uzbekistan until 2030, as well as a road map for setting up of production of electric vehicles, their components and spare parts.

In particular, the draft aims to bring the share of electric vehicles in total car sales to at least 15% by 2030. To do this, it is planned to create a full cycle for the production of electric vehicles and components based on available natural resources (lithium, graphite and copper).

To stimulate the purchase and operation of electric vehicles and electric buses (categories M1, M2, M3, N1, N2, N3) from April 1, 2022 to April 31, 2030, it is proposed to establish the following:

• land plots with charging stations for at least two electric vehicles and parking spaces around each of them shall be waived from land tax;
• expenses of legal entities related to the creation of charging stations shall be added to expenses deductible when calculating income tax;
• when importing electric vehicles with a manufacturing date of no more than one year and registering under the “free circulation” customs regime, individuals and legal entities shall be waived from paying the recycling fee until January 1, 2027;
• charging stations, their components and technological equipment of the service infrastructure imported into the territory of Uzbekistan shall be waived from customs duties (except for customs fees).

The draft proposed to cover until January 1, 2025 the costs of legal entities providing electric vehicle charging services to purchase electricity at the expense of subsidies from the state budget. In particular, in order to reimburse part of expenses to business entities for the purchase and installation of a Mode-4 charging station with a capacity of 60 kW and above, and also to allocate a subsidy worth of 10 thousand dollars. These compensations will only apply if the Mode-3 charging stations have Type 2 and GB/T AC connectors and the Mode-4 stations have CCS Combo 2 and GB/T DC connectors.

Under the Ministry of Economic Development, it is proposed to set up a Green Economy Development Fund.

Starting from April 1, 2022, the fund’s funds are planned to be formed from the following sources:

• 0.2% of price of new vehicles with internal combustion engines (excluding hybrid vehicles) upon their state registration by the Main Directorate for Road Safety of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and 0.5% of their value upon re-registration of used vehicles with internal combustion engines;
• payment for the ownership of a vehicle with an internal combustion engine of 2 liters or more in the amount of 2 BRD, received during its technical inspection;
• a special surcharge of 15 soums per liter when selling gasoline and diesel fuel in retail chains and 100 soums per cubic meter at points of sale of liquefied and compressed gas;
• from June 1, 2022, an environmental fee in the amount of 10,000 soums for entering the territory of ecological tourism for each vehicle with an internal combustion engine.

The project also assumes that ministries, departments and organizations with an authorized state share of more than 50% should transfer at least 10% of the fleet of official cars to electric vehicles by 2025 and up to 100% by 2030.

It should be noted that in November last year, during the climate conference in Glasgow COP-26, Uzbekistan committed itself to bringing the share of electric vehicles to 20% in the total volume of vehicles by 2030.