At the meeting that was held on July 26 under the chairmanship of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev, it was noted that monitoring of projects in the sectors and regions revealed an unsatisfactory state of their implementation. Therefore, last week, a resolution of the President was adopted to accelerate the implementation of investment and infrastructure projects, which provides for the implementation in 2018-2019 of 580 projects at the amount of $30 billion, including by attracting $26 billion of direct investment. Of the total number of projects, 148 will be implemented by business associations and 432 by regional enterprises. Within the framework of 456 projects, this year it is required to master 2,6 billion dollars of direct investment.
In this regard, the Deputy Prime Ministers were instructed to develop sectoral schedules for the timely and qualitative implementation of these projects, providing for full application in 2018-2019 of $3,9 billion of investments by business associations and $3 billion of direct investments by regional enterprises. At the same time, heads of economic associations, Jokargy Kenes of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, khokims of regions and the city of Tashkent should develop roadmaps to find investors for 69 sectoral and 189 regional perspective investment projects, accelerating the development of their feasibility studies and implementation. Ministries and agencies, economic associations and local khokimiyats should increase their attention to the issue of attracting direct investments in implementation of investment projects.
It was noted that a number of preferences and indulgences were created by the resolution of the President for accelerating the development and coordination of project documentation. In particular, the requirements for the compulsory development of preliminary feasibility studies or calculations, as well as coordination of target lists of construction with the National Project Management Agency, have been canceled. The requirement in the agency for the examination of projects involving international and foreign financial organizations, projects in which the share of foreign direct investment exceeds 70 percent, and projects implemented in accordance with production sharing agreements, has also been canceled. Import contracts concluded on the basis of tenders will be examined by the National Project Management Agency only for their compliance with the tender documentation and legislation, the correctness of the translation of the text. In addition, according to the resolution, it is allowed to carry out construction and installation works on 37 major important investment projects worth $27 billion in parallel with development of design and estimate documentation, accelerate one-stage design and financing. Heads of relevant ministries and departments were given instructions on organizing a special working group on each of these 37 projects, accelerating activities on them, ensuring qualitative and timely construction of facilities, preventing unreasonable increase in procurement prices, identifying specific contractors and suppliers.
At the meeting, the fact that the list of projects implemented by all sources in 2019 is still not ready, although less than six months remain until the end of this year, was criticized. Previously, it was determined that by April 1 of this year, the concept of long-term development of industries and regions should be ready, by July 15 – a portfolio of projects, by October 10 – a draft State Development Program, and at present, work was to begin on preparation of project documentation of facilities for the next year.
For correcting the situation, the State Committee for Investments should, together with relevant ministries, agencies, economic associations and khokimiyats, form a draft investment program on the basis of proposals for projects financed from all sources.
