Development of entrepreneurship discussed in Bukhara

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- On 4 September 2019, the next 60th session of the Bukhara Regional Kengash of People’s Deputies was held. The meeting, which took place in the form of video conferencing, was attended by members of the Senate, deputies of the regional Kengash, representatives of state authorities and non-governmental organizations, business entities and media workers.

The session was attended by the Chairman of the Senate of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan Tanzila Narbaeva.

In accordance with the agenda, the results of the study by the parliamentary working group of the state of the work carried out in the field of entrepreneurship development, as well as urgent issues of further development of small business and private entrepreneurship were discussed.

It was noted that the Bukhara region occupies a special place in the development of the republic. It is noteworthy that over the past 3 years, the region’s economy has been developing even faster. In particular, the forecast figure of 1.9 trillion soums, determined for the first half of 2019 on budget revenues, is executed by 114%. Including revenues to the local budget made up 221.5 billion soums. In the region, within the framework of the territorial investment program for 2019–2020, it is planned to implement 615 projects worth 14.6 trillion soums. Currently, 401 projects have disbursed funds of commercial banks and project proponents in the amount of 3.7 trillion soums, 208 projects have been fully launched, about 4 thousand new jobs have been created. Over the past period of this year, products worth US$175.7 million were exported, which was 1.7 times higher than last year.

However, despite this, in the region there are a number of problems in the development of private business and entrepreneurship. In particular, today 19,685 business entities are registered in the region, this year 4,452 business entities are reorganized. However, about 1,050 of them have suspended their activities due to the insufficient level of work carried out to support business entities. Inactive small businesses are most found in the cities of Bukhara (208), Gijduvan (218 ta), Bukhara (155 ta) and Shafirkan (106ta) districts.

In the region, some work has been carried out on the transition to a new tax regime. Since the current year, 2310 business entities (last year 381 or 6 times more) or 9.8% of their total number were transferred to the generally established tax system. 256 of them moved to a simplified system, 2054 business entities are payers of value added tax at a standard rate of 20%.

Within six months of this year, as a result of cameral supervision conducted in 1212 entities, the receipt of recalculations in the amount of 39.3 billion soums was ensured. Also, according to the results of cameral supervision conducted by the state tax authorities, an express study was carried out in 118 entities that questionably responded to applications, of which an additional 10.6 billion soums were recounted to the budget.

In 2018, the turnover in the region exceeded 1.0 billion soums, the number of individual entrepreneurs amounted to 380, 195 of which operate as a legal entity.

At the same time, during the analysis of the problems hindering the development of entrepreneurship, it was emphasized that such barriers arise due to the fact that the primary lending requirements are not sufficiently taken into account, relations between banks and their clients are not established at the proper level. It was noted that due to these shortcomings in this direction and untimely repaid loans and interest, troubled debts in the amount of 23 billion 300 million soums have arisen today in the region, which negatively affects the financial condition of commercial banks and limits the reorientation of funds to the development of entrepreneurship, billions in sums.

In addition, as of 1 August, the tax debt of business entities operating in the region reached 57.3 billion soums. At the same time, 22.5 billion soums were collected in August. Particularly, it was noted that it is necessary to take effective measures to reduce the remaining debt.

Increasing the export potential of the region largely depends on the activity of free economic and small industrial zones. Today, there are such free economic zones as Gijduvan, Bukhara – Agro and 8 small industrial zones. There are a number of problems in their work waiting to be resolved in the field of construction of transport infrastructure, production, and engineering and communications infrastructure.

Speakers at the session focused on the need to identify specific measures to eliminate identified shortcomings and monitor their implementation in collaboration with ministries and departments with the involvement of regional organizations. Thus, it was noted that it is necessary to take measures with the involvement of responsible structures to form a list of business entities that have suspended their activities, to restore their activities in the future, or to eliminate them in the manner prescribed by law.

On the issues considered during the session, a decision was made by the Bukhara Regional Kengash of People’s Deputies.