|
WELCOMING ADDRESS by the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan
H.E.
Mr. Islam Karimov to the participants of the International
Scientific-Practical Conference in Tashkent
On April 12 this year Tashkent hosted the International
Scientific-Practical Conference “The Efficiency of the Anti-crisis
Programs and Priorities of the Post-Crisis Development (in the case of
Uzbekistan)”.
The conference addressed the timeliness, adequacy, accuracy and
efficiency of the Anti-crisis programs adopted on the national level,
and particularly, in the case of Uzbekistan.
The participants of the high-profile forum have exchanged opinions and
critically assessed the Uzbek approach, plans and priorities of the
post-crisis development of Uzbekistan’s economy.
On such occasion the President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov sent a
welcoming message to the partakers of the International
Scientific-Practical Conference which brought together the respected
scholars, experts, economists, analysts, diplomats and media people.
Here is the text of the presidential message in English as it has been
translated from Russian at the Information Agency “Jahon”.
***
WELCOMING ADDRESS
by the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan H.E. Mr. Islam Karimov to
the participants of the International Scientific-Practical Conference
“The Efficiency of the Anti-crisis Programs and Priorities of the
Post-Crisis Development (in the case of Uzbekistan)”
Dear participants of the conference!
Allow me to cordially welcome you, our distinguished guests, the
representatives of high-profile international organizations, scientists,
analysts and experts, and express the feelings of sincere gratitude for
Your participation in this international conference.
I think, it will not be a mistake if I say that the topic of this
scientific-practical conference on “The Efficiency of the Anti-crisis
Programs and Priorities of the Post-Crisis Development” cannot but
arouse a profound interest, above all, a sense of urgency, if you take
into account that the assessments and suggested approaches and ways to
address these problems at the national, regional and global levels are
today the most discussed issues in the world.
And in this regard to analyze the timeliness, adequacy, accuracy and
efficiency of the Anti-crisis programs adopted on the national level,
and in this case the example of Uzbekistan, the exchange of opinions and
critical assessment of our approach, our plans and priorities of the
post-crisis development of the country’s economy, without any doubt, may
turn out very useful for all of the participants of the dialogue.
I would like to especially underline that the “Uzbek model” of economic
development based on the five principles of reforming and renewing
economy that we have elaborated, and are implementing in our country
since gaining independence, as well as the weighed and balanced economic
policy has created a solid barrier and sufficient safety factor for
safeguarding Uzbekistan’s economy from the impact of speculative
capital, and the ungovernable wave and absence of control in the world
financial and stock markets. Such policy has ensured the macroeconomic
stability, sustainable functioning of the financial-banking sphere and
growth of hard currency reserves.
We did not pump our economy, financial and banking system with excessive
liquidity, but have focused, firstly, on supporting the financial
sustainability of the real economy, small business and sphere of
entrepreneurship, the measures on modernizing, technical and
technological re-equipment and diversification of production, reducing
costs and ensuring competitiveness of the manufactured products.
The accomplishment of such measures as implementing a large-scale
Investment program, continuing structural transformations in the
economy, considerably expanding the scales and volumes of social and
infrastructure projects which has ensured employment, steady reduction
of the tax burden and providing the necessary preferences for the core
export-oriented sectors paved way for achieving the goals set in the
Anti-crisis program.
The adopted strategy of combating the crisis and neutralizing its
consequences has allowed our country to be among a few number of states
in the world to secure over the past period sustainable rates of
economic development, which in 2009 grew by 8.1 percent, industrial
production – by 9.0 percent, agriculture – by 5.7 percent, volume of
investments into economy – by 25 percent with direct foreign investments
to have raised for 1.8 times.
During the last year exports grew by 2.4 percent, ensuring a significant
trade surplus and sustainable growth of the official reserves. Despite
the crisis and recession in the world economy, more than 940,000 new
jobs have been created in the country, of which over half – are in the
countryside area. The sustainable surplus of the state budget is
ensured. The external debt percentage of GDP on January 1, 2010 was not
more than 10 percent.
Based on projections, which have been confirmed by authoritative
international experts, a growth in the volume of exports and also
conducting an active industrial policy will ensure that the economic
growth of the Republic of Uzbekistan in 2010 and 2011 will be on the
level 8.5 and 9.0 percent, respectively.
Along with this, we clearly realize, and the assessments of high-profile
international analysts and experts serve as testimony to it, that
despite the top peak stage of the large-scale financial-economic crisis
is overcome, the world economy will yet to endure rather long and very
complex process of recovery.
The danger of recurrence of a recession of economies still prevails in
many countries brought about by sharp fluctuations and in a number of
cases by the slump in demand in the world market, remaining growth of
unemployment and worsening of the living standards of population.
The shrinking of production volumes, growing unemployment and decreasing
of the population’s real incomes lead to a state budget deficit, which
takes on threatening scales, brings about a threat to sustainability of
state finances and increases social tension.
The growing volumes of public debt in certain countries are directly
related to these problems.
Given unsatisfactory economic growth rates and production decline it
attracts one’s attention to the considerable growth and inflation of
indices in stock and raw material markets that indicate to the expanding
“bubbles” which by the time have to burst and lead to a new collapse at
the financial and currency markets.
One cannot but to say about growing emission of cash assets and pumping
them into the financial-banking sector that creates the potential
explosive danger of inflation processes and leads to serious
disproportions in the economy.
Many analysts note that with notable excessiveness of liquidity of the
banking sector, a number of countries face serious problems in terms of
financing the real sector of economy, the sphere of medium and small
business, as well as entrepreneurship.
Such situation is explained by a sharp worsening of the financial state
of the real sector of the economy and the emerging great problem in
terms of loan repayment.
The protectionist policy in the world market continues to remain a
serious brake in addressing the crisis, especially for developing
countries. Despite all the declarative announcements at the “Group-20”
meetings such policy is more than ever being applied.
I would like to underscore that there are still ongoing arguments and
discussions on such key issues as determining the criteria of the
banking system risks and the mechanisms for governing these risks, the
extent and limits of state interference in market principles of managing
the economy.
Such and other problems, which still remain and are not being resolved,
confirm a practically unambiguous view upheld by many experts that the
process of escape of the world economy from crisis and post-crisis
recovery may have a protracted and rather complex nature with a real
possibility of new collapses in the financial market.
Taking into account the aforementioned, we eye the most important task
of the post-crisis development in implementing our main priority, which
directly proceeds from the national model of reforming the country, i.e.
the realization of structural transformation programs and
diversification of production bearing in mind a complete denial of raw
material orientation of the economy, ensure the primary share of
high-technological and competitive products in export.
The tasks of conducting an active investment policy to implement the
strategically significant projects aimed at modernization, technical and
technological renewal of leading branches of the economy, development of
powerful modern network of transport and infrastructure communications
will continue to remain on the focus of our attention.
I would like to provide some examples to confirm that.
In 2010 to start and continue construction of new strategically
important projects, it is envisaged to attract foreign investments in
the amount of more than 3 billion dollars, or with a growth against last
year by 30 percent, including the direct investments increase by 46
percent.
Along with attracting foreign investments and creating exclusively
favorable conditions for them in the country we are paying important
attention to mobilizing domestic resources.
The total volume of credit resources being channeled to the real sector
of economy in 2009 grew in comparison with 2000 by 14 times and in this
the share of credits channeled for investment purposes made up about 70
percent of the total credit portfolio.
In 2007, firstly in order to accomplish the work related to developing
infrastructure, reconstructing and modernizing production base, we
established the Fund for Reconstruction and Development, in which today
more than 4.7 billion dollars of hard currency assets are accumulated.
Last year the Government approved the Program on implementing the most
important projects on modernization, technical and technological
re-equipment of production base for 2009-2014, which includes more than
300 projects worth in total over 42.5 billion dollars.
For most of them concrete sources of funding, consortiums of investors
and terms of their implementation have been determined.
A special attention is being paid to implementing measures to increase
domestic demand by way of mobilizing and further stimulating
participation of banking structures, economic entities and population in
investment processes.
The Program of accelerated development and construction of housing and
social infrastructure in rural areas may serve as an example of
implementing such projects. This Program is meant to cardinally
reorganize and renew the image of village on a modern architectural and
industrial basis, raise the living standards of population in the
countryside and make it closer to urban conditions.
In order to implement this extremely large program, which is set for the
long-term perspective, we established a powerful design,
industrial-construction and engineering-technical potential, formed the
necessary organizational structures and adopted promotional measures and
preferences.
Through a specially established bank and its affiliate offices at the
local levels in 2010 it is envisioned to allocate for these purposes
over 390 million dollars, which is over 4 times more than similar
allocations in 2009. In this, by April 1 this year, households
themselves have already contributed more than 60 million dollars of
their own funds. It is scheduled to construct over 7600 houses in all
rural districts with estimated value of about 400 million dollars.
It should born in mind that the implementation of this program forms a
powerful demand in all branches and industries related to construction,
and creates tens and hundreds of thousands new jobs.
Dear participants of the conference!
I am confident that conclusions and recommendations elaborated during
the forum certainly will find their practical application and will
encourage increasing efficiency of the anti-crisis programs, serve for
consolidating trust and developing the international cooperation in the
post-crisis recovery of the world economy.
I wish all participants of the conference a fruitful work!
|
