President Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan reviewed plans on April 6 for a radical reduction of state presence in the economy. Despite a 60 percent decrease in the number of state-owned enterprises over the past five years and over 10 trillion soums received into the budget from privatization, the head of state criticized the current pace of work and demanded the implementation of modern analytical tools.

Currently, 1,685 enterprises with state participation remain in the country, accounting for 42 percent of the economy. Efficiency is a particular concern: in 2024, 451 enterprises incurred massive losses totaling 14 trillion soums. To address the situation, it is proposed to establish a digital technologies project office within the State Assets Management Agency, which will use artificial intelligence for financial analysis and early problem detection.

An important direction will be optimizing the use of workspace. The standard space per employee is planned to be reduced from 27 to 12–15 square meters. This will free up and bring into economic circulation about 4.9 million square meters of vacant premises, which will be put up for sale or lease.

The President also ordered to bring order to land plots. It was revealed that out of 11.4 thousand hectares of land allocated to businesses in recent years, activity has not begun on 3.1 thousand hectares. Now, plots will be auctioned only as ready business projects with a full package of permits. Monitoring of targeted land use will be strengthened through integration of the "E-auksion" and "Yerelektron" systems with data from "Uzbekkosmos".

Separately, preparations for the privatization of the country's largest assets were reported. In the near future, the company "UzAuto Motors", the enterprise "Navoiyazot", and a number of thermal power plants are planned to be put up for auction. The head of state emphasized that new owners will be strictly required to preserve jobs and introduce innovative technologies.

Source: podrobno.uz