BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 10
By Ilkin Seyfaddini - Trend:
The Government of Uzbekistan intends to ensure further growth of the country's economy during 2020, Trend reports citing the press service of the president of Uzbekistan.
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev held a meeting to discuss topical issues related to the stability of the national economy on June 9, 2020.
It was noted that over the past three months, 2.3 trillion soum ($226.1 million) of tax benefits and 3.6 trillion soum (353.9 million) from the Anti-Crisis Fund were allocated to support the economy of Uzbekistan due coronavirus pandemic.
At the meeting, the head of state stressed the availability of all opportunities to ensure further growth of the economy this year through the use of new approaches and tools, and outlined eight key areas in this regard.
Priority directions to ensuring economic and financial stability defined by government, is reducing poverty and increasing employment; accelerating reforms in the banking system; increasing foreign direct investment; increasing export potential and ensuring foreign exchange earnings; strengthening competitiveness in industry; developing small business; and widely introducing digital technologies in all sectors.
The president instructed to optimize budget revenues and expenditures and to ensure additional revenues at the expense of resuming the activity of enterprises and improving tax administration, while at the conclusion of external loan transactions - to prevent exceeding the established limit.
Within the second direction, 810,000 permanent jobs are to be restored this year, 310,000 permanent and 633,000 seasonal jobs are to be created.
Serious reforms have been launched in the banking system. The meeting highlighted the acceleration of the planned measures, timely implementation of the transformation process in 10 state-owned banks, indexation of interest rates in line with the anti-inflationary policy.
The head of state stressed importance of exports increasing, as a sharp decline in demand in foreign markets has a serious impact on domestic exporting enterprises.
The meeting focused on industrial development issues. It was pointed out that in some branches of industry there is no complete chain of deep processing of raw materials and production of value added products.
“The processing of copper is less than 25 percent, silk - less than 20 percent. Inter-industry cooperation is not fully established. In particular, cooperation in the electro-technical industry and agriculture will allow producing products worth at least $80 million,” the message said.
The head of state gave instructions to pay special attention to the chemical, textile, construction, automobile, electrotechnical and food industries and to speed up the process of reforming state-owned enterprises.
---
Follow author on Twitter: @seyfaddini
