August 1, 2014
Salaries in Uzbekistan to grow by 12% from 1 September2
investments: Tashkent city.. 3
The Capital City’s Pulse Rate. 3
The opportunity of registration on a Single portal using Bank cards has been created. 4
POLICY
Earnest Greetings
Congratulatory letters continue to come from heads of foreign states and prominent international organizations addressed to President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov on the occasion of Eid-al-Fitr.
His Excellency
Mr. Islam Karimov,
President of the Republic of Uzbekistan
Dear Mr. President!
On behalf of the American people I extend warmest wishes to You and the people of Uzbekistan on the occasion of Eid-al-Fitr.
During the last month the Muslims all over the world, attaining comfort in their faith and extending their service to the less fortunate, complied with the traditions of Ramadan together with their families and friends. I hope the month has become a time of renewal and reflection for You and Your relatives.
I wish You peace, sound health and prosperity in the coming year.
Respectfully,
Barack Obama,
President of the United States of America
* * *
His Excellency
Mr. Islam Karimov,
President of the Republic of Uzbekistan
Your Excellency!
I express gratitude to You for kind feelings and wishes on the holiday of Eid-al-Fitr. I would like to convey my warm congratulations to You and best wishes on Eid-al-Fitr.
Please accept, Your Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration.
Shamshad Akhtar,
Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations
Executive Secretary of the United Nations
Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific
Greeting letters keep coming.
(Source: UzA)
Salaries in Uzbekistan to grow by 12% from 1 September
President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov signed a decree “On increasing the sizes of salaries, pensions, stipends and social allowances” on 31 July 2014.
The document was adopted at increasing income and life standards of population, as well as strengthening social support of citizens of Uzbekistan.
According to the decree, the salaries to workers of budget organizations, pensions, allowances and stipends to students will increase by 12% on the average from 1 September 2014.
The following minimum sizes will be effective in Uzbekistan starting from 1 September 2014:
– salaries – 107,635 soums per month;
– pensions – 210,525 soums per month;
– allowances for disabled from childhood – 210,525 soums per month;
– allowances for elderly and work incapable citizen without the required work experience – 129,180 soums per month.
The document said that the expenses related to increasing salaries will be covered by state budget and off-budget Pension Fund under the Ministry of Finance of Uzbekistan.
Last time, the minimum sizes of salaries were increased by 5% in December 2013.
(Source: UzReport.uz)
investments: Tashkent city
The Capital City’s Pulse Rate
The uniqueness of any metropolis is not only what its heritage, social, industrial and other notable sites make up, but also its public transportation infrastructure and the way it functions. Businesspeople, students, teachers, healthcare workers and representatives of many other occupations spend at least several minutes a day on public vehicles supposed to take them to their destinations fast, safely and comfortably. For the past two years, Tashkent public transportation system has been hitting the headlines, for dozens of projects aimed at delivering it to the international standard level are being implemented.
A competently built and efficient public transportation system is crucial to the existence of any large city. With new businesses, organizations, recreational facilities, etc. opening in it, its passenger flows change, which often results in traffic jams and overcrowded buses. In order to prevent such problems, a metropolis must have a comprehensive development program and use effective machinery for monitoring the pulse and pressure of its transportation system closely, taking account of every detail that may affect them.
Tashkent, Central Asia’s largest city, goes on growing. Annually, dozens of new facilities are built in the capital; thousands of new residents and guests arrive in it. Therefore, the load on its public transportation infrastructure and resources increases, and it must be coped with. Besides, the passengers need to enjoy as much comfort and safety as possible. That was why the city adopted two policies with regard to its public transportation, aimed at preventing its problems in the future and improving it. It began to modernize and expand its fleets through purchasing modern vehicles, imported ones and made domestically, and to expand its existing system of roads through building new highways and interchanges. Currently, a major infrastructural project of building a new circular road in the Old City of Tashkent, for instance, is being implemented. Its total cost is 20 billion soums. In order to accelerate and optimize the construction of the road, its builders divided its total length (5.1km) into five sections. By now, they have already laid part of the asphalt, installed the concrete blocks separating the lanes, part of the night lighting system, and the concrete drainage elements. The relocation of the 645-meter-long part of the Kalkauz Canal between the streets Sebzor and Qorasaroi is one of the most serious challenges the builders are facing. They will have to dig a new watercourse for it, surface it with concrete, build utilities lines under the highway, etc. (Currency rates of CB from 01.08.2014 1$= 2332.24 soums)
The Tashkent public transportation system is managed by the joint stock company Toshshahartranskhizmat. Its main task is to coordinate the activities of a number of affiliated businesses and organizations so as to fully provide the city’s population with high quality transportation services and ensure their efficiency and financial sustainability. It is this company that is planning to carry out a number of unique public transportation projects in Tashkent in the near future.
The interaction between the urban and suburban transportation services is to be optimized, for instance. Every day thousands of commuters come to Tashkent from the suburbs, nearby villages and smaller cities – to work, study, etc. Their passenger routes are Tashkent’s busiest, thus a number of measures will be taken to increase their capacity and effectiveness, and increase the revenues of the public transportation businesses operating them. Tashkent authorities are going to reconstruct and build a number of bus stations along the Tashkent Ring Road and upgrade the bus route terminals at the metro stations Pakhtakor, Beruni, Dostlik, Chorsu, Olmazor and Habib Abdullaev. Twenty one bus routes will be linked to Tashkent metro stations to greatly improve the network and add to the convenience of the passengers.
The city goes on upgrading and expanding its public transportation fleets. Today, there are 157 routes with over 1,300 buses running along them in the capital. Twenty eight million passenger tickets per month are sold in the city; 22 million of them are public bus ones. Last year only, Toshshahartranskhizmat purchased 100 new most comfortable and spacious modern buses Mercedes-Benz. Until the end of 2014, it is planning to purchase 80 Isuzu buses manufactured by Samarqand Automobile Factory. The latter will be used for expanding the ‘mixed’ type of transportation on most of the routes. It is common knowledge that rush hours fall on certain hours in the mornings and evenings, while at other hours the passenger traffic subsides. That is why Toshshahartranskhizmat runs spacious Mercedes-Benzes at rush hours and smaller Isuzus at other times.
The company also has a number of other interesting initiatives to note. Among them stands out the project of building special fleets of share taxis or route taxis (a mode of transport that falls between taxis and buses). By the end of October this year, the company is planning to complete a feasibility study for 336 share taxi vehicles. Italian IVEKO minibuses, as an option for the fleet, have already been tested in the city. In 2014 – 2015, Toshshahartranskhizmat is also going to set up a taxi company with a fleet of 140 cars to be purchased with loans from commercial banks.
The city also introduces advanced facilitating technologies to add to the convenience of the operation of its public transportation system. One of the most important of them is GPSmonitoring equipment allowing for locating a vehicle and controlling their route times. Today, 134 Mercedes-Benz and Isuzu buses running along 13 routes as well as 12 Foton and IVEKO minibuses have got this facility already, and all the rest public transportation vehicles under Toshshahartranskhizmat will be equipped with it by the end of the current year. The foreign partner of the project is the Chinese company Meitrack Group. It is to supply GPS trackers and GPS / GSM antennas to Toshshahartranskhizmat. Together with this project, the city launched a website (www.via.uz) where anyone can find the exact arrival time of a certain bus at a certain stop they want.
Recently, we wrote about the project of setting up an electronic payment system integrating universal transportation cards (contactless smart-cards) in the capital’s public transportation vehicles. Today, a card gate of this system is being tested at the metro station Mustaqillik. Toshshahartranskhizmat has also launched a new interactive map of the city’s public transportation routes. It displays every route its user selects, with all the stops and the names of the street it lies through. Besides, it provides addresses of over 11,000 local companies and shows how to get to them.
In order to increase the revenues of the local transportation companies, Toshshahartranskhizmat is going to set up businesses specializing in manufacturing spare parts and providing maintenance services. By the end of this year, they are to organize manufacture of special clothing at Birinchi Avtokorkhona JSC, rubber silent blocks for Mercedes-Benz buses at Ikkinchi Avtobus Saroyi JSC, and spare parts for metro carriages and special machinery at Toshkent Metropoliteni. Besides, a maintenance and repair center for MAN and Isuzu vehicles is to be set up at Uchinchi Avtobus Saroyi JSC.
(Source: «Uzbekistan Today» newspaper)
BUSINESS CLIMATE
The opportunity of registration on a Single portal using Bank cards has been created
In addition to the existing ways of registration, the Single portal has implemented the resource of registration using UZCARD EMV bank cards, and as a result, the binding of the card user to his office on a Single portal.
Now the registration on a Single portal can be performed using the UZCARD EMV (online card) bank card. The registration is done in 2 steps, by entering user information and basic data of its plastic card (card number and expiry date), as well as a verification code, which is sent to the user in the form of SMS message. The user’s phone after the registration receives a message of a Single portal about successful registration.
This method allows making payments directly from the user’ s account to a Single portal without reentering credit card details. Primarily this opportunity will be implemented for services provided on a Single portal.
(Source: UzReport.uz)