Ministry of Transport to Develop Cost-Cutting and Transformation Plan for State Transport Companies

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) — Uzbekistan’s Minister of Transport, Ilkhom Makhkamov, stated in an interview with Uzbekiston 24 that at the beginning of 2025, state transport companies — Uzbekistan Railways, Uzbekistan Airways, and Uzbekistan Airports — were tasked with reducing service costs by 20%.

The implementation of this directive is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year. A detailed plan has been prepared for state-owned companies to optimize expenses by at least 20%.

Minister Makhkamov added that the Ministry of Transport will issue a separate resolution within the week, defining cost-reduction and expense-optimization targets for these transport companies in 2026.

“Large specialized transport enterprises are instructed to continue their transformation, obtain credit ratings from the ‘Big Three’ — Moody’s, Fitch Ratings, and Standard & Poor’s — and conduct an audit of direct procurement. A detailed action plan with mandatory compliance will be developed to achieve these goals,” the minister said.

According to the State Statistics Committee, domestic airfares have risen by 57.3% over the past year. Among other services and goods, only driver training courses (+73.3%) and carrots (+57.5%) experienced faster price growth.