In his holiday greetings dedicated to Constitution Day, the President of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, emphasized that in recent years, thanks to the selfless work of our people, the national economy has grown twofold, per capita income has reached $3,000, and the poverty level has decreased from 23 to 11%.

According to Dmitry Trostyansky, a Doctor of Economics and Chief Researcher at the Institute for Strategic and Regional Studies under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, the formation of a modern architecture for reforming and modernizing the national economy and improving the country’s investment and business climate is of paramount importance in achieving the noted results.

In particular, measures were taken to streamline legislation related to entrepreneurial activity. More than 10,000 ineffective or outdated regulations were canceled, and about 200 licenses and permits were revoked or simplified.

An equally important step was the reform of tax administration. Thus, taxes were reduced from 13 to 8, property tax rates were reduced from 5 to 1.5%, and value-added tax rates were reduced from 20 to 12%. The tax burden on wages was reduced by 2 times. This made it possible to increase entrepreneurs’ confidence in reforms and increase tax revenues to the budget by four times.

Adopting the renewed Constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan was timely and highly relevant. The Basic Law enshrined the provisions of a qualitatively new stage in the development of the national economy in terms of content, goals, and objectives. It is based on the principles of not only freedom of economic activity, equality, and legal protection of all forms of ownership but also the formation of a favorable business and investment climate, protection of competition, and prevention of monopolization of economic activity.

To ensure sustainable economic growth, increase the national economy’s competitiveness, and sharply increase private investment, the Development Strategy of New Uzbekistan for 2022-2026 provides for the elimination of monopolies in more than 25 types of activities by abolishing exclusive rights and privatizing companies with state shares.

These measures will certainly help reduce state participation in the economy and create broad opportunities for business, both domestic and foreign. This will also speed up the full transition of the national economy to market economic relations and create a class of real owners – a guarantor of progressive movement towards the intended goals for the benefit of the people of New Uzbekistan.