Baku, Azerbaijan, July 24
By Fakhri Vakilov - Trend:
Together with the World Bank, International Financial Corporation (IFC) is currently in discussions with the government of Uzbekistan to act as a lead transaction advisor for the tendering of a public-private partnership for the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of a new combined-cycle gas turbine near the existing Syrdarya thermal power plant, IFC Country Officer for Uzbekistan Zafar Khashimov told Trend in an interview.
“The project will help increase efficiency for gas-fired electricity generation and support a reliable power supply in the country,” he added.
Considering Uzbekistan’s investment attractiveness to foreign capital, Khashimov noted that during the past two years, the government has made significant progress in advancing difficult economic reforms.
“In addition to liberalizing the foreign exchange regime, officials have improved the business and investment climate, reduced the state’s presence in the economy, and adopted important legal reforms. The changes have definitely made the country more attractive to foreign investors,” he stated.
IFC Country Officer for Uzbekistan added that many big challenges lie ahead and there are critical areas where the government needs to continue the work.
The work includes reducing the state’s role in the economy, further developing infrastructure, boosting technology-enabled services, continuing to improve the investment climate, and implementing reforms of the banking, financial and energy sectors and land and agriculture reforms.
“These are all steps in the right direction, which we support. Together with the World Bank, we will continue encouraging the country’s reform agenda with financial and technical assistance. We firmly believe that Uzbekistan has the potential to become an upper-middle income country by 2030, which is the government’s goal,” he underlined.
Recently Trend reported that IFC may take part in modernization of Syrdarya TPP.
IFC—a sister organization of the World Bank and member of the World Bank Group—is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in developing countries. The Bank Group has set two goals for the world to achieve by 2030: end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity in every country.
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