Uzbekistan committed to reducing state share in economy, effective use of natural resources - Uzbek president

TASHKENT. Nov 16 (Interfax) - The reduction of the share of the state in the economy, the deepening of privatization, and rich natural resources open up big opportunities for investors, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said at the first plenary session of the Uzbek presidential Foreign Investors Council on Wednesday.

"A total of 1,200 state enterprises were privatized in Uzbekistan in the past few years. Next year, we intend to privatize about 1,000 more enterprises and real estate objects," Mirziyoyev said in a speech published on his official site.

According to his information, the mechanism of state-private partnership is being actively introduced in all sectors of the country's economy. Uzbekistan has drawn more than $8 billion using state-private partnership mechanisms to the energy sector alone.

The president said there is a huge potential for exploration of Uzbekistan's rich natural resources. He said the country ranks second in the world in gold reserves, seventh in copper reserves, eighth in wolframium reserves, ninth in silver reserves, and 12th in uranium reserves.

"To draw large investment in the development of mineral deposits, we have made our geological data public. We have reduced the tax rates on the development of more than 10 types of strategic natural resources, we have abolished the land tax and we have exempted special equipment from customs payments. We have prepared specific projects for deep resource processing," Mirziyoyev said.

For example, 150,000 tonnes of copper is extracted in Uzbekistan, of which only 70,000 tonnes is processed, he said.

"In the coming months, we will bring copper production volumes to 500,000 tonnes. In this regard, we have started creating a copper cluster," he said.

The president said implementation of projects to produce copper foil, electric engines, solar panels, cable and semiconductor products, and other commodities with a high added value has begun on the territory of this cluster.

"Besides, we intend to found an electromobile production sector," Mirziyoyev said. He invited investors to start practical cooperation in these directions.