FEAS Yearbook FEAS Yearbook 2017 | Page 54

Republic of Uzbekistan

Country Facts

Federation of Euro-Asian Stock Exchanges

Uzbekistan’s GDP growth slowed down to 7%

year-on-year (y-o-y) in the first half of 2017

from 7.8% in the first half of 2016, as per official

statistics. Key drivers of this still robust rate were

services, agriculture, and industry, which were

supported by their corresponding 2016–20 sectoral

development programs.

On the demand side, the main driver of economic

growth was investment, including a large public

investment program to support real sector

development in 2015–19 as well as private and

state-owned enterprise (SOE) investments.

However, real investment growth slowed to 8.3%

y-o-y in the first half of 2017 from 11.8% y-o-y in the

first half of 2016.

Private consumption increased slightly in real

terms in the first half of 2017 due to stable income

growth (despite the acceleration in food price

inflation) and a recovery of remittances inflows,

which rose by about 30% y-o-y in U.S. dollar terms

in the same period. The current account and state

budget balances remained in small surpluses in the

first half of 2017.

Monetary and exchange rate policies remained

largely unchanged in the first half of 2017, helping

total banking loans to grow by over 40% y-o-y in

that period. On June 28, 2017, the Central Bank of

Uzbekistan (CBU) rate was raised from 9 to 14%,

given the higher inflation observed since late 2016.

Nonperforming loans remained stable at 0.4% in

August 2017 as per the CBU estimate, or 2.0–2.5%

according to Moody’s estimate.

Capital Market Information

Economic Development and Outlook

Key Highlights of the year 2016 2017

54

Click here to read the full economic outlook prepared by the

World Bank.