From the first years of independence, Uzbekistan has been attaching tremendous importance to the development of small business and private enterprise, and the provision of more freedom to entrepreneurship.
In the last 5-6 years, the efforts on this front have seen greater impetus, in cooperation with international organizations in terms of implementation of best foreign practices. It has allowed to significantly reduce excessive licensing procedures for entrepreneurship, cut their terms and cost.
The close cooperation, established through video conferencing, exchange of comments and arrangement of direct meetings with experts, has better introduced international community to the reforms underway in Uzbekistan to improve the business environment.
Over the past four years, Uzbekistan has conducted a factor analysis of the business environment and introduced evaluation criteria and indicators that define the country’s rating, in accordance with the ‘Doing Business’ methodology of World Bank and its subsidiary International Finance Corporation.
Based on the results, experts prepared and implemented reforms to radically streamline the legislation in the key areas that are evaluated by the ‘Doing Business’ rating. As a result, the last World Bank report ‘Doing Business 2017: Assessing Quality and Performance of Regulation’ ranked Uzbekistan 87th. Experts scaled up the ranks of the republic in five out of the ten indicators of the report.
A significant progress was observed in company registration – an increase by 17 positions. This was achieved by the practical implementation of a simplified procedure of state registration in the Internet, and streamlined ‘one window’ system for registration of businesses.
It is worth noting that the recent measures have drastically simplified the procedures of opening business. Today, starting a business takes less time in Uzbekistan than, for example, in Switzerland – by 1.8 times, Germany – 1.9 times, Japan and Russia – 2 times, Israel – by 2,2 times, Greece and Spain – by 2.3 times, India – 4.7 times, China – 5.5 times, and Brazil – by 14.5 times.
Uzbekistan has significantly improved its rating in connection to electric grids (now in the 83rd position, 29 point increase) owing to the enhanced reliability of supply and transparency of electric energy tariffs.
Scaled reforms on introduction of modern technologies of corporate governance, strengthening of the role and rights of private shareholders have allowed to significantly raise the nation’s rating in the indicator ‘protection of minority investors’ (70th position, 18 point increase). The introduction of new regulations and mechanisms on strengthening the protection of minority investors by enhanced disclosure of information on joint stock companies, and specification of the structure of ownership of shared capital has contributed to the improvement of the rankings.
The country has also improved its rating in property registration (75th position, 12 points increase). The progress was conditioned by the launch of ‘single window’ public service centers for businesses since January 1, 2016, and a significant improvement in the system of electronic exchange of information between authorized authorities without the involvement of the applicants.
The reforms have significantly simplified the procedure and enhanced the transparency of land allocation, issuance of permits for construction, and registration of cadastral documentation. As a result, the latest report of the World Bank ranked Uzbekistan among 17 countries of the world to improve the quality of land administration in 2015-2016.
The report registered the level of tax burden at 38.1%, which is significantly lower than in Austria, Germany, Greece, India, Spain, Italy, China, Russia, USA, France, Czech Republic, Japan and some other countries.
Uzbekistan now ranks among the hundred countries in such areas as enterprise registration (the 25th position), execution of contracts (38th), loaning (44th), protection of minority shareholders (70th), property registration (75th) and connection to electric grids (83rd).
