INFORMATION DIGEST OF PRESS OF UZBEKISTAN # 189

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September 23, 2016

INFORMATION DIGEST OF PRESS OF UZBEKISTAN # 189

the elections of President of the Republic of Uzbekistan.. 1

Candidates for membership of district election commissions recommended. 1

POLItiCs. 1

Acting President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev received first deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Askar Mamin on 22 September 1

investments. 2

A project on the establishment of the country’s first plant for conveyor belts, agricultural and automobile tires is currently in progress on the territory of the Angren SIZ.. 2

International cooperation.. 2

Coordination Meeting of Foreign Ministers of the OIC Member States. 2

Meeting with US Under Secretary of State. Ошибка! Закладка не определена.

25th Anniversary of Independence of Uzbekistan.. 3

Uzbekistan: A state with the great future. 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

the elections of President of the Republic of Uzbekistan

Candidates for membership of district election commissions recommended

On September 20-21, 2016, sessions of Jokargy Kenes, provincial and Tashkent city Kegnashes (councils) of people’s deputies took place in the Republic of Karakalpakstan, regions and the city of Tashkent to discuss candidates for the membership of district election commissions on elections of President of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

In accordance with the Law “On elections of President of the Republic of Uzbekistan” and the Program of major main on preparations and holding of the elections, constituencies are formed for elections of President of the Republic of Uzbekistan within the boundaries of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, regions and Tashkent city.

The list of electoral districts with an indication of the number of voters and locations of district election commissions are being published in print media.

Organization and conduct of presidential elections are provided by the Central Election Commission of the Republic of Uzbekistan, district and precinct election commissions.

The district election commissions are formed by the Central Election Commission no later than seventy days before the elections, consisting of a chairperson, a deputy, a secretary and at least 6-8 members.

Members of the district election commissions from among eminent members of the wider public shall be approved by the Central Election Commission on recommendation of Jokargy Kenes of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, regional and Tashkent city Kengashes (councils) of people’s deputies.

Following the discussions at the sessions of local representative bodies of government, people’s deputies adopted due decisions on the recommendation of nominees for membership of district election commissions.

 (Source: Republican Press Center on Covering the Elections of President of the Republic of Uzbekistan)

POLItiCs

Acting President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev received first deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Askar Mamin on 22 September

The sides discussed the issues of practical implementation of the agreements, reached during the visit of President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev to Samarkand, above all, in further development of mutually beneficial trade-economic cooperation, at the meeting.

The issues of increasing the volumes of bilateral trade turnover, in particular thanks to formation of new sales markets in our countries were on the spotlight.

In particular, a number of concrete proposals and events, developed by experts of the two countries – creation of joint trade houses on promoting competitive industrial products, supporting trade projects by national banking and finance institutions, facilitating interaction of customs bodies, carrying out joint business forums and visits, were approved.

The parties underlined the necessity to continue mutually beneficial cooperation in transport and transit transportation spheres, including providing tariff preferences in transportation of export cargo and implementation of new joint projects, which will allow to increase competitiveness of regional transport corridors and ensure their high load.

Askar Mamin conveyed his sincere gratitude for a warm reception and underscored the readiness of the Republic of Kazakhstan in implementing joint measures on widening full-scale and mutually beneficial trade-economic cooperation between our countries.

(Source: UzA)

investments

A project on the establishment of the country’s first plant for conveyor belts, agricultural and automobile tires is currently in progress on the territory of the Angren SIZ

Today, the republic is in dire need of domestic production of rubber products. In the country, which annually produces more than 200,000 cars, where millions of cars run on the roads, not to mention the agricultural sector with its tractors and industries operated by conveyor belts, it is the issue of economic sovereignty.

According to experts, imports of rubber products in Uzbekistan cost more than $160 million annually, tending to grow with each passing year. A new plant, which is scheduled for commissioning in the third quarter of 2018, is called to change the tendency. In the first phase, it will produce 3 million tires of two dozen sizes, 200,000 agricultural tires and 100,000 linear meters of conveyor belts, allowing meeting the needs of the domestic market by almost 100%.

The turn-key contract for the construction of the plant was signed with the Chinese company Poly Technologies Inc in August 2014. It aimed at using advanced technologies and equipment in order to establish the production of tires in line with high international standards.

The total cost of the project is $213.9 million. The Asaka Bank and Eximbank of China signed a $156.3 million loan agreement to finance the project in July 2015. The remainder of the funds will be allocated by the Fund for Reconstruction and Development of Uzbekistan, O’zkimyosanoat, O’zavtosanoat, Navoi Mining and Smelting Plant, and Almalyk MSP.

Solution of organizational issues and opening of funding proceeded with construction works. It is worth noting that the project provides for the maximum use of local material and human resources. For example, O’zbekgidroenergokurilish workers were involved in the preparation of pits. Ferganakimyomontaj specialists built almost three kilometers of fence. A railway track is laid by workers of Uzbekistan Railways. The construction site is supplied with electricity and water from two drilled wells. A concrete unit with the capacity of 90 cubic meters of concrete per hour is supplied with cement from Jizzakh Cement Plant. Fitting for the foundation is delivered by Uzmetkombinat. Sand and gravel are brought from nearby quarries.

Concrete works are underway at the construction site. Orders for equipment supplies have already been placed under the processing chain, prior to the completion of construction. The equipment will be delivered in Angren in 2017.

Experts already work on prospects of production development. They include expansion of tire production capacity to 5 million items, as well as the organization of truck tire production. Over time, as part of localization and import substitutiuion, specialists of Uzmetkombinat will help to handle the production of steel cord for tires, and Uzbekneftegaz National Holding Company will help with synthetic rubber, which will allow refusing from imports, increasing the level of localization of domestic rubber products, reducing their cost and increasing export capacity .

(Source: «Uzbekistan Today» newspaper)

International cooperation

Coordination Meeting of Foreign Ministers of the OIC Member States

On September 22, 2016, the delegation of the Republic of Uzbekistan headed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdulaziz Kamilov, who arrived in New York to participate in the 71st Session of the UN General Assembly, participated in the Coordination Meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

The Uzbek side informed the foreign ministers on the preparations for the 43rd Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the OIC, to be held in October 2016 in Tashkent, including on the issues to be discussed, the program and other practical aspects of the forthcoming forum.

(Source: Press Service of the MFA of the Republic of Uzbekistan)

Meeting with US Under Secretary of State

On September 22, 2016 in New-York Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan Abdulaziz Kamilov met with the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Shannon.

The Minister  expressed gratitude on behalf of the government of Uzbekistan to the American side for condolences expressed by the US President Barack Obama on the death of the First President I.A.Karimov.

During the conversation the sides exchanged views on topical issues of the Uzbek-American agenda, and the prospects of further development of relations.

The parties also discussed some international and regional problems.

(Source: Press Service of the MFA of the Republic of Uzbekistan)

25th Anniversary of Independence of Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan: A state with the great future

A quarter of a century ago, a new independent sovereign state emerged on the political and geographic maps of the world – the Republic of Uzbekistan. In the space of almost 7 decades before this remarkable event, Uzbekistan was part of the former USSR, where it appeared in the role of a major cotton base for the Soviet economy. Securing high and consistent cotton harvests and meeting demand for raw cotton of all-Union and domestic enterprises constituted one of the priority tasks facing Uzbekistan as an integral part of the Soviet Union’s centralized economic complex.

As a matter of fact, it is the volume of cultivated and supplied cotton that determined the republic’s economic position as well as the amount of attention given and support provided by Soviet leaders. This affected, to a certain extent, both the structure and specialization of the whole manufacturing industry in Uzbekistan. A majority of its enterprises produced agricultural machinery designed to mechanize cotton cultivation and to industrialize the agrarian sector at large. The biggest enterprises operating there in that period included Tashselmash, Uzbekselmash, Chirchikselmash, Andijanirmash, the Tashkent Tractor Works and others.

According to official figures, at the beginning of 1991 – the year when Uzbekistan proclaimed independence – there were 9,700 industrial enterprises in operation, including 1,821 – in manufacturing; their production personnel exceeded 1 million. Only 283 industrial enterprises, scientific-production associations and group of enterprises that functioned in the machine-building sector operated independently. In 1990, the volume of goods turned out by Uzbekistan during 15 days was equivalent to that produced during the four quarters of 1940.

As is generally known, the truth arises in argument, while the achievements and successes spring up from comparison. In 1913, all industrial enterprises that operated on the territory of Uzbekistan were privately owned. Truth to say, there was a pittance of them – only 425, of which 208 enterprises were cotton-refineries, 90 – food production facilities, 18 – oil mills, 35 – tanneries etc. At the same time, more than 80 per cent of Uzbekistan’s gross manufactured output resulted from the primary processing of raw cotton. It is clear that in the course of many years – from the tsarist period to the acquisition of independence, the Uzbek economy was dominated by cotton-growing.

Over the years of Soviet power, the republic’s economy reached much, but still couldn’t become independent and self-sufficient. It is pointed out in the Uzbek leader’s book “Uzbekistan: its own model of transition to market relationships” that “in 1991, the republics, which gained their independence, including Uzbekistan, inherited from the former Soviet Union a completely ruined economy, inefficient financial and price-formation systems, an almost atrophic administrative mechanism and deformed economic relationships… Enterprises en bloc produced goods not to satiate the home market’s demand, but to be subsequently supplied to many regions elsewhere in the Soviet Union. The stupendous natural potential of Uzbekistan was ruthlessly exhausted, with the receipts being accumulated far beyond its borders.”

As for the living standards of the republic’s population, they also left much to be desired. According to statistics, in 1990, some 70 per cent of the Uzbek population enjoyed the total income, which was below the subsistence minimum, while in Russia and Ukraine, only 30 per cent of their residents was in a similar situation. At the same time, about 60 per cent of citizens in Uzbekistan lived in rural areas and were predominantly engaged in agriculture. Jobs in the countryside were provided by administrations of kolkhozes and sovkhozes that were considered to be a major production link in the agrarian sector. Very often, local peasants, called “kolkhoz workers”, had neither work-books nor civil passports. Literally “tied” to the land, they were not entitled to go elsewhere across the Soviet Union, not to mention travelling abroad. The countryside worked to provide the manufacturing industry with raw materials and citizens – with farm produce and foodstuffs.

Today, the situation in Uzbekistan is radically different thanks to independence. The improvement of villages themselves and living standards of peasants, not to mention many legal questions of their life, represents one of the priority directions of the nation’s economic and social development. As a member of the UNO, the Republic of Uzbekistan enjoys equal rights with other member states of this international organization. Uzbekistan is part and parcel of the world community and the global financial-economic market. It maintains diplomatic relations with many countries. The Republic is no longer confused with Afghanistan or Pakistan, as was the case before. The World Economic Forum rates Uzbekistan as one of the world’s five top nations with the most rapidly developing economies. Over the past 10-12 years, the rates of economic growth in the Republic have never dropped below 8 per cent. In 2015, Uzbekistan has become one of the 14 countries awarded for the achievement of the Millennium Development Purposes in the field of ensuring food security by the member states of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Uzbekistan has been confidently following the path of scientific-technical and social progress, doing its best to intensify the pace of economic and social development and thus to join the club of the world’s highly developed states as soon as possible.

The past achievements and the current year’s accomplishments testify to this statement. In the Republic of Uzbekistan, 2016 has been proclaimed as the Year of Healthy Mother and Child. In the first quarter of this year, the country’s GDP has increased by 7.5 per cent, manufacturing – 7 per cent and industries such as farming, timber and fishery – 6.7 per cent, in comparison with the similar period of 2015.

One should mention a tangible increase in investment activity. The scale of major construction work in the Republic has grown, especially that of house-building in the countryside. In the first quarter of 2016, the volumes of implemented investments have jumped by 8.5 per cent and 19.4 per cent, correspondingly. Compared with the similar period of the past year, the volume of foreign investments implemented in the Republic has grown by 14.4 per cent, exceeding US $732 million, with foreign direct investments accounting for US $563 million of this amount. Realizing territorial programs of regional economic development, 632 production facilities have been put into operation since the beginning of the current year; as many as 167.7 thou new jobs have been created, of which 58 per cent are in rural areas; and 37 new product categories of localized output have been mastered in Uzbekistan.

Some 1.3 trillion Soum (currency rates of CB RU from 23.09.2016, 1$= 3005.11 soums) have been appropriated toward the implementation of the Year of Healthy Mother and Child State Program. 1,120 families with children under age 14, 8,460 families with children under age 2 as well as 2,130 families of scanty means have been granted pecuniary aid. More than 155,000 children have been inoculated against 12 manageable infections. 44 children with inborn development defects and 10 children with inborn heart disease have been operated and brought into a healthy state with the financial support from a number of international organizations. Over the years of independent development, the maternal and child mortality rates dropped and the population’s life expectancy went up appreciably.

Since the acquisition of independence the right to possess private property was rehabilitated. Business and entrepreneurship, formerly regarded as the distinctive features of a capitalist economy, were backed by the state and rapidly turned into a pivotal sector of the national economy and the main source of increases in the population’s employment and income rates. For now those engaged in this sector create some 57 per cent of the country’s GDP. More than 77 per cent of Uzbek citizens carrying out economic activity work there.

Addressing the participants in the grand meeting dedicated to the 23rd anniversary of the Republic’s Constitution, the Uzbek leader stressed: “We have every reason to claim that 2016 and the years to come will constitute an even more crucial stage in the processes of further intensification and increase in the efficiency of ongoing reforms. It will cover the implementation of deep qualitative restructuring in the economy; the rapid development of private property and entrepreneurship and protection of the interests of proprietors and business people; the formation of new corporate organizations; a further reduction of the state’s share in the national economy; the attraction of larger volumes of foreign investments and creation of all necessary prerequisites and preferences to secure this objective.

A given Presidential thesis is, in essence, a kind of state policy and strategy of economic development for both the present and the future, which rests, above all, on the vast reserves of minerals, large production capacities and considerable manpower resources available in the country. According to the existing economic calculations, Uzbekistan’s potential in the field of natural resources and raw materials is estimated at more than US $3 trillion. The Republic is one of the world’s ten top countries by the amount of known reserves of mineral resources. The economic model elaborated by the Uzbek leader is aimed not only at exploiting its mineral wealth in the most zealous way, but also at ensuring its preservation for future generations. The Republic of Uzbekistan is not only a state with the great future; it is a state with the rich present, which creates public tranquility, the population’s confidence in prosperous everyday life and their trust in the reforms carried out nationwide.

(Source: «Business partner.uz» newspaper)

 

 

 

 

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