Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — The share of manufacturing in Uzbekistan’s GDP reached a historic high of 20.2% in 2024, according to the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) report “Architecture of Industrial Transformation in Developing Economies.”
According to the report, Uzbekistan ranks 83rd in the UNIDO Industrial Competitiveness Index but is demonstrating a more dynamic phase of industrial growth compared with other countries in the region. Per capita exports of medium- and high-value-added products in the country remain significantly below those of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
The bank’s analysts place Uzbekistan in the group of countries with a large resource base and growing domestic demand, along with Kazakhstan. The country’s resource profile includes natural gas, gold, copper, uranium, cotton, agricultural resources and mineral raw materials.
Unlike Kazakhstan, where the mineral and oil and gas base dominates, Uzbekistan’s starting position, the report notes, is more closely linked to a combination of an agricultural base, textile traditions, a growing domestic market and expanding industrial employment.
The country’s industry is based on textiles, chemicals, pulp and paper products, food processing, metallurgy, as well as certain segments of mechanical engineering and electrical engineering.
For most of Uzbekistan’s manufacturing modules, the report says, the transition from the stage of laying the industrial foundation to the stage of an industrial platform is relevant. This means developing infrastructure, vocational skills, standards and suppliers. At the same time, in some areas the country is already ready to deepen elements of the industrial platform and develop targeted functions of the knowledge economy.
The report identifies chemicals and polymers, industrial mechanical engineering, food processing and agro-processing, transport components, agricultural and irrigation machinery, fertilizers and agrochemicals, technical textiles, electrical engineering, pharmaceuticals and metallurgy among Uzbekistan’s priority industrial areas. The authors describe the country’s potential specialization as more diversified and more focused on labor, markets and agro-industry compared with Kazakhstan.
About 53% of sales of Uzbekistan’s second-stage processed products are directed to the Eurasian region, the report notes.
According to an earlier EDB scenario study cited by the report’s authors, the combined potential for additional annual output for Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan from the development of chemicals, mechanical engineering, higher-value-added metallurgy and food processing is estimated at about US$57 billion, or around 13% of their 2019 output.
Among development institutions that could finance industrial sites, quality infrastructure and pilot production facilities, the report names the Fund for Reconstruction and Development for Uzbekistan.
