June 10, 2015
UN Secretary-General to visit Uzbekistan on 11-12 June. 2
Expanding the range of goods made in the Republic of Uzbekistan. 2
Uzbek Chess Players on the Podium.. 5
POLItiCs
UN Secretary-General to visit Uzbekistan on 11-12 June
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will pay an official visit to Uzbekistan on 11-12 June 2015, the press service of the President of Uzbekistan said.
During meetings and negotiations with the President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov, it is planned to discuss current state and perspectives of development of cooperation between Uzbekistan and the UN agencies, as well as actual regional and international issues.
(Source: UzDaily.com )
economy
Expanding the range of goods made in the Republic of Uzbekistan
Since the first days of independence, Uzbekistan chose its own path of development and root-and-branch transformation of all spheres of life, in order to create a democratic, legal state with a socially-oriented market economy. At the same time, one of the country’s chief directions of socio-economic development was the achievement of stable food supply and availability of foodstuffs in accordance with the rational norms of wholesome nutrition. To this end, a multitude of measures were taken to speed up the realization of economic reforms in various sectors of the national economy on the basis of the priority development of farms, perfection of production relationships in rural areas, introduction of a new organizational structure of management in agriculture, textile, construction and other industries, which fully meets the relevant market principles; entrenchment of freedom of activity enjoyed by domestic commodity manufacturers and provision them with reliable legal protection.
Satiating the home market with domestically-made foodstuffs is one of the major directions in which to develop the Uzbek economy. This objective can hardly be attained without the large-scale re-organization of agriculture and industry alike. And both the expansion of a range of commodities produced and the substantial improvement of their qualitative characteristics serve as indications of the progress made in these vital sectors.
In this connection, it is directly relevant to point out that the level of indigenous output’s correspondence to high international quality standards and requirements has a significant role to play in winning by domestic enterprises a deserved place in the world market as well as in ensuring that the national economy takes part in global trade on a level with other participants. And an increase in the share of finished goods in Uzbekistan’s exports structure will undoubtedly be conducive to a rise in the population’s employment and incomes. Moreover, this is sure to lead to a lower dependency of the Republic’s pace of development upon the unstable situation in the raw material market and, in the long run, to the achievement by the country of stable economic growth.
The development of agriculture and manufacturing in the past few years is characterized by the great changes spawned by a whole complex of measures taken in Uzbekistan within the framework of the Presidential Decrees “On additional measures to stimulate the expansion of production of indigenous non-food goods” and “On measures to expand the production of foodstuffs and to satiate the home market” and other regulatory-legal documents.
Big enterprises turning out one or another commodity are being increasingly replaced by smaller production facilities and workshops, predominantly privately owned ones. It should be observed in this connection that their relatively smaller production volumes prove to inure to the benefit of different sectors, in terms of their capacity to develop more rapidly. The advantages of small and medium-sized enterprises are evident: it is easier to keep them running; their production costs are lower and they can respond to the ever-changing market environment quicker than their larger counterparts. Processing workshops operating at big farms have a small share in the total volume of their output. It is an optimum scheme, from the experts’ standpoint, in terms of growth prospects and the quality of produce in agriculture and manufacturing alike.
The transition from big organizational forms to smaller ones has been accomplished on a step-by-step basis. With the widespread development of market relationships in the Republic, large enterprises proved unprofitable and thousands of private entrepreneurs rushed into the market. Thanks to their numerous economic advantages, small enterprises have played an important role in modernization of different sectors of the Uzbek economy, because local entrepreneurs quickly outfitted their production facilities with advanced technologies, machinery and implements from the world’s leading companies.
Since the beginning of the current year, 53 new investment projects have been launched within the framework of the Investment Program for 2015. Their total value exceeds US $4 billion. In the same period, 434 new production facilities have been put into service under territorial programs of regional socio-economic development.
The realization of investment projects to modernize production establishments and capacities and to renovate them, both technically and technologically, combined with the commissioning of new production enterprises have intensified the pace of structural reforms and diversification in the leading sectors of manufacturing. In particular, the first quarter of the current year has seen a more dynamic pace of growth in those industries that specialize in the production of goods with high value added, such as the light industry (cotton-cleaning excluded) – 120 per cent compared with 2014 (including cotton production – 120.1 per cent, knitted-wear production – 114.5 per cent, garment production – 120.6 per cent and tanning industry – 118.4 per cent), ferrous metallurgy – 111.9 per cent, woodworking – 108.9 per cent, production of foodstuffs – 114.8 per cent and the chemical and petrochemical sector – 109.3 per cent.
Production of the following product categories have been significantly increased in Uzbekistan: tractors, pipes for oil and gas pipelines, carbamide, potassium chloride, refrigerators and deep-freezers, cotton fabrics, knitted linen, knitted wear, clothes, hosiery, leather fancy goods, flour, dairy produce, medicines and other groups of finished commodities.
The Republic’s endeavors to broaden the range of consumer goods have already borne fruit: in 2015, domestic enterprises have mastered the production of 19 new groups of commodities, 151 models of ready-made clothes and knitted wear, and 98 new kinds of confectionery, tinned fruit and vegetables and canned meat and dairy products. This has led to an 11.2 per cent increase in production volumes of consumer goods, including foodstuffs – 19.2 per cent and non-food products – 6 per cent.
In order to make indigenous output more competitive at home and abroad, 130 units of obsolete equipment have been withdrawn from many large enterprises and replaced by modern machinery and implements. As a result, in the indicated period, production volumes of innovative commodities and productivity in manufacturing have gone up 1.7-fold and by 6.1 per cent, respectively; the prime cost of goods made at large enterprises have fallen by 9 per cent on the average, with the power input of the nation’s GDP having dropped by 10.1 per cent.
Notwithstanding a growing unpredictability and instability of the demand-and-supply situation in the international markets, the implementation of systemic measures to expand the range and assortment of goods that are in great request abroad, to raise their level of competitiveness and to render every sort of assistance to enterprises-exporters in promoting their produce in the overseas markets have made it possible to augment the Republic’s exports volumes by 13.9 per cent.
The installation of high-tech equipment has allowed Uzbekistan to launch the production of condensed milk, whose quality meets all the international requirements for a given product. Besides, as a result of modernization, milk and sour-milk produce have become a raw material for the production of various other sweet products, such as chocolate glazed curd bars and yogurt.
In addition to enterprises using local raw stuff, there are many enterprises in the country, which specialize in the production of foodstuffs on the basis of imported raw materials. For instance, the majority of domestic ice-cream producers use imported dried milk as a basic raw stuff. Singapore -Samarkand and Imkonplus are the leading producers of ice-cream in Uzbekistan to date.
At present, residents of all towns and districts of Uzbekistan can easily enumerate several local trademarks of sausage, including Tukhtaniyoz-ota, Tegen, Geomax, Navruz, Sagban and many others. Virtually every province can boast its own varieties of sausage. It is a striking endorsement of the fact that mainly small enterprises operate in the home sausage market. For the time being, more than 150 sausage varieties are available in the Uzbek market.
In Uzbekistan, much attention is now devoted to the development of fishery and poultry farming.
It is necessary to point out that following the realization of the Program on priorities of industrial development in the Republic of Uzbekistan in the period 2011-2015 and the Program on priority measures to increase production volumes and to master the production of new categories of competitive goods, 14 enterprises have been put into operation in the textile, sewing and knitting sectors and 17 ones – in the tanning and boot-and-shoe industries.
Each year, lots of events are arranged in the country, in a move to give a quantum boost to the development of different industries. The International Industrial Fair and Cooperative Exchange is one of them.
The aims of International Industrial Fair and Cooperative Exchange, organized by the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations, Investment and Trade and the Chamber of Industry and Commerce of the Republic of Uzbekistan, are as follows: to develop intra- and inter-sector cooperation; to highlight the commodities made in the country; and to assist indigenous producers in finding partners and signing economic agreements.
It is vital to ensure the outstripping development of those enterprises, whose output may withstand competition in the world marketplace. These enterprises can become a powerful engine behind such processes as rapid economic growth and further modernization and diversification of the national economy.
At the same time, a growing solvent demand of the population and industries alike requires an accelerated build-up of production volumes and expansion of the range of non-food consumer goods, especially ready-made ones.
A number of regulatory documents have been passed in Uzbekistan to encourage indigenous manufacturers to turn out more quality commodities, which is believed to lead to a tangible reduction of imports volumes.
One of such documents is the Presidential Decree, “On measures to ensure the reliable protection of private property, small business and private entrepreneurship, and to eliminate obstacles for their rapid development” dated May 15th, 2015. It is aimed at creating “even more favorable conditions and incentives designed to cardinally raise the role and place of private property in the national economy, to withdraw the obstacles and limitations that still exist in the organization of entrepreneurial activity and to promote a steady rise in the private property’s share of the nation’s GDP, including private property with a share of foreign capital.”
The document in question gives particular attention to the creation of all necessary conditions and possibilities for a rapid development of private property and private entrepreneurship, simplification of a procedure for their establishment, organization of entrepreneurial activity and granting of greater freedom to entrepreneurs by liberalizing administrative and criminal legislation.
The whole complex of measures taken in Uzbekistan to continue structural reforms, to modernize and upgrade the major industries of the national economy, to speed up the development of production and social infrastructure and to render every sort of assistance to domestic manufacturers will help the country to preserve a steady rate of economic growth.
(Source: «Business partner.uz» newspaper)
sport
Uzbek Chess Players on the Podium
At the last Asian Championship in Singapore chess among schoolchildren our young athletes won 2 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze medals.
In the competition of the prestigious tournament among girls under the age of 7 years, our compatriot Muattar Juraeva twice rose to the highest step of the podium.
Uzbek talented chess player has not suffered a defeat in any of the nine rounds of competitions in standard chess with 8 points and won the gold medal. During the competition, she won over the representative of Sri Lanka, India, Kazakhstan and the Philippines, chess players played a draw with the United Arab Emirates and Singapore. M.Juraeva successfully participated in blitz chess with 8 points and took first place.
Among boys under the age of 7 years Okjul Rakhmatullaev scored five points in blitz chess, and was awarded the silver, and the standard chess with seven points – bronze medal.
In the competition among boys aged 9 years Rakhmatullaev Olmos scored six points in blitz chess and took third place.
(Source: IA «Jahon»)
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