During an open dialogue with business leaders, president Shavkat Mirziyoyev put forward new initiatives for further ease of doing business.

Support for SMEs

The first area is to increase financial resources for small and medium businesses.

Since the beginning of the year, the Business Development Bank and the Entrepreneurship Development Company have been set up. More than 35 thousand businesses have received microloans inworth of 3.5 trillion soums.

Under the First Step to Business program, microloans for 1 trillion soums were provided to 115 thousand people who are just starting their businesseship.

According to the president, he had decided to expand this experiment further. Now all banks and microfinance organizations will be able to join in supporting small and medium businesses.

For example, it turned out that a microloan of up to 100 million soums is enough for the needs of only 9% of businesses. Thefroe, the size of microloans will be increased threefold to 300 million soums. While, collateral will not be required for a portion of the loan up to 100 million soums.

10 trillion soums will be contributed for these purposes per year.

Now, a branch of the Company for the Development of Entrepreneurship will be created in each region, which will identify businesses with potential.

The company will provide guarantees to businesses with a good credit history and a high sustainability rating.

Microfinance

A path will be paved for the microfinance market. For example, over the past seven months, 91 microfinance organizations have provided financial services worth 6.6 trillion soums, and by the end of the year this figure is expected to reach 12 trillion soums.

Government support for microfinance services will continue. They will be contributed an additional 1 trillion soums of resources to 1.6 trillion soums for this year.

In addition, the creation of microfinance banks with an authorized capital of at least 50 billion soums will be allowed. At least 70% of the loan portfolio of these banks will be directed to financing small and medium businesses.

Microfinance organizations will also be allowed to provide services to businesses in foreign currency and operate as a payment organization based on a license.

Factoring

Today, many exporters supply products to large foreign trade networks with a condition of payment in 3-4 months.

For continuous production, companies have an increasing need for working capital. However, not all businesses have the opportunity to obtain a new loan and find collateral for it.

To this end, factoring is the most convenient tool that does not require collateral from the business. According to the International Finance Corporation, the demand for factoring services in Uzbekistan is $ 10 billion. Currently, this service is provided only by banks and microfinance organizations.

Now it is allowed to create a separate factoring organization, it is allowed to conduct transactions in foreign currency if the client's counterparty is a non-resident of Uzbekistan. An electronic platform for factoring services will also be created.

As noted, due to the popularization of factoring, businesses will receive 20 trillion soums for turnover, and exporting enterprises - 1 billion dollars.

Islamic finance

During the survey, 38% of businesses expressed a desire to receive resources based on Islamic finance.

Last month, microfinance organizations were allowed to provide such services.

If the new draft bill is adopted, banks will be able to work with Islamic financing. This will stimulate the introduction of new financial services, the arrival of many investors and the creation of an additional resource of 5 billion dollars, the president said.