Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- On 22 August 2020, an online dialogue between the Chairman of the Senate of the Oliy Majlis, Chairman of the Republican Council for Working with International Ratings and Indices Tanzila Narbaeva and Minister of Finance Timur Ishmetov took place.

The main purpose of the dialogue is to discuss the state of work on international ratings and indices, for which the Ministry of Finance is responsible, existing problems and measures taken to solve them.

During the dialogue, they spoke about the country’s position on the indicator "Public expenditure" of the Index of Economic Freedom of the Heritage Fund. In particular, it was noted that during the period of reforms, many costs are covered by the state - from the budget, costs increased especially due to the pandemic.

During the event, it was noted that it is necessary to establish a unified rate of attracting public external debt, to develop a bill regulating this area.

The granting to some enterprises or large entrepreneurs of many benefits, additional rules, preferences in paying taxes has been criticized, which negatively affects market freedom, competitiveness, and transparency of the tax system. The need to strengthen the mechanism for the examination of the draft regulatory legal act providing for these benefits was noted.

In this context, the Chairperson of the Senate Tanzila Narbaeva stressed that the interests of a narrow circle of persons should not prevail over the interests of the people.

It should be noted that according to the Index of Economic Freedom, Uzbekistan ranks 114th among 186 countries, 26th among 42 countries of the Asia-Pacific region.

For some indicators, the republic’s indicators are much higher. For example, our country scored 98.9 points out of 100 on the “fiscal health” indicator and 91.6 points on the “tax burden” indicator.

During the dialogue, an exchange of views took place on the need for a consistent continuation of reforms that affect these indicators, in particular, ensuring budget transparency, strengthening deputy and parliamentary control over budget execution, increasing the role of local Kengashes of people’s deputies, expanding citizen participation in budgeting.

The Chairperson of the Senate emphasized the expediency of maintaining a rating of regions on the openness of the budget in order to ensure budget transparency, noted that maintaining such a rating helps to identify problem regions, monitor the level of citizens’ activity, monitor the targeted use of budget funds, and obtain a positive assessment in the international arena.

During the dialogue, the need to take measures to bring national standards of auditing and accounting in line with international standards was discussed. It was noted that organizations do not have a single approach to conducting internal audits; in most cases, inspections and their results are based on subjective factors.

It was also noted the need to pay attention to the issue of improving the qualifications of employees and members of public associations of accountants and auditors.

According to the Chairman of the Senate, the transition to international financial reporting standards, as well as the adoption of concepts on a number of international standards, may require amendments and additions to regulatory legal acts. Therefore, the Law on Accounting must be revised based on the requirements of international standards.