Uzbekistan Gold Bullion Sales Surge Eightfold in 2025

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) — The Central Bank of Uzbekistan released an analytical review of the gold bullion market, reporting an unprecedented surge in demand for physical gold in 2025 amid historically high global prices.

Since November 2020, when the Central Bank began distributing standardized gold bars through commercial banks, bars weighing 5, 10, 20, and 50 grams have been available. In 2025, 100-gram bars were also introduced. Protective packaging, produced in collaboration with Italian company Certline SRL, incorporates three security features: a cryptoprint, a QR code for real-time authenticity verification, and a unique serial number for each bar and its packaging.

From November 2020 to December 30, 2025, citizens purchased a total of 65,150 gold bars, with a combined weight of 1.2 tons. The number of banks authorized to sell gold increased from 12 to 19, while sales points grew from 34 to 170. Smaller denominations—5- and 10-gram bars—accounted for more than 60% of total sales.

Demand spiked sharply over the last two years. In 2024, 236 kg of bars were sold, nearly triple the average annual volume of the preceding period. In 2025, sales reached 661 kg (33,939 bars), eight times higher than the average and 18.4% more than the total of the previous five years combined. The regulator attributes this surge to global gold prices approaching historical highs. During 2020–2025, banks repurchased 11,828 bars from citizens, totaling 201 kg, with small denominations comprising approximately 65% of these buybacks.

In terms of returns, gold bars outperformed bank deposits between 2023 and 2025. While average annual interest rates on local currency deposits were around 19% and dollar deposits about 5%, gold bar yields reached 25.2% in 2023, 31.6% in 2024, and 54.5% in 2025. The Central Bank emphasizes, however, that gold does not generate interest, is highly volatile, and future returns are not guaranteed. Prices are based on the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) fixing, adjusted for the bank’s operational margin and the official currency rate.

In November 2025, new regulations governing bank operations with precious metals came into force. They introduced electronic metallic accounts, allowing customers to purchase gold in unallocated form from 0.1 grams via mobile banking apps, without physically receiving the bar. By the end of 2025, electronic gold deposits totaled 169.74 kg worth 311.7 billion soums. Currently, this service is offered by UzNationalBank and UzpromStroyBank.

The updated rules also allow commercial banks to independently set buy and sell prices for bars throughout the trading day, based on global prices and current demand.