Overview: Uzbekistan is a dry, landlocked country of which 20% is intensely cultivated, irrigated river valleys. It is one of the poorest states of the former USSR with 60% of its population living in overpopulated rural communities. Nevertheless, Uzbekistan is the world's third largest cotton exporter, a major producer of gold and natural gas, and a regionally significant producer of chemicals and machinery. Since independence, the government has sought to prop up the Soviet-style command economy with subsidies and tight controls on prices and production. Such policies have buffered the economy from the sharp declines in output and high inflation experienced by many other former Soviet republics. By late 1993, however, they had become increasingly unsustainable as inflation soared and Russia forced the Uzbek Government to introduce its own currency. Faced with mounting economic problems, the government has increased its cooperation with international financial institutions, announced an acceleration of privatization, and stepped up efforts to attract foreign investors. Nevertheless, the regime is likely to resist full-fledged market reforms.

National product: GDP - purchasing power equivalent - $53.7 billion (1993 estimate from the UN International Comparison Program, as extended to 1991 and published in the World Bank's World Development Report 1993; and as extrapolated to 1993 using official Uzbek statistics, which are very uncertain because of major economic changes since 1990)

National product real growth rate: -3.5% (1993 est.)

National product per capita: $2,430 (1993 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 18% per month (1993)

Unemployment rate: 0.2% includes only officially registered unemployed; large numbers of underemployed workers

Budget:
revenues: $NA
expenditures: $NA, including capital expenditures of $NA

Exports: $706.5 million to outside the FSU countries (1993)
commodities: cotton, gold, natural gas, mineral fertilizers, ferrous metals, textiles, food products
partners: Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, US

Imports: $947.3 million from outside the FSU countries (1993)
commodities: grain, machinery and parts, consumer durables, other foods
partners: principally other FSU countries, Czech Republic

External debt: $NA

Industrial production: growth rate -7% (1993)

Electricity:
capacity: 11,950,000 kW
production: 50.9 billion kWh
consumption per capita: 2,300 kWh (1992)

Industries: textiles, food processing, machine building, metallurgy, natural gas

Agriculture: livestock, cotton, vegetables, fruits, grain

Illicit drugs: illicit cultivator of cannabis and opium poppy; mostly for CIS consumption; limited government eradication programs; used as transshipment points for illicit drugs to Western Europe

Economic aid:
recipient: $125 million by yearend 1993; future commitments for about $500 million

Currency: introduced provisional som-coupons 10 November 1993 which circulated parallel to the Russian rubles; became the sole legal currency 31 January 1994; will be replaced in July 1994 by the som currency
Exchange rates: NA

Fiscal year: calendar year

NOTE: The information regarding Uzbekistan on this page is re-published from the 1995 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Uzbekistan Economy 1995 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Uzbekistan Economy 1995 should be addressed to the CIA.