Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — Uzbekistan has launched the first stage of the World Business Integration Platform (wbip.uz), a digital service designed to help foreign companies find business partners, investors and customers.
Mukhtor Umarov, chairman of the Assembly of Economy of Uzbekistan, announced the launch at the FINOBOD 2026 forum in Tashkent.
The project was presented on 13 November during a plenary session titled “Digital Uzbekistan – Central Asia’s Innovation Hub”. According to Umarov, the platform is part of the Assembly OS System cluster, which uses artificial intelligence to bring together 65 industry associations representing around 100,000 companies.
A separate platform, Tijorat Markazi, is available to Uzbek entrepreneurs for selling goods, attracting investment and recruiting staff.
Umarov said more than 2,000 Chinese companies had already submitted applications to join the international platform.
He said the service could facilitate cooperation with partners from China, Japan, Russia and European countries. The session moderator noted that Uzbekistan had not previously had a unified platform of this scale.
According to figures presented at the session, Uzbekistan had around 21,500 enterprises with foreign investment as of 1 September 2026. About 17,000 of them were wholly foreign-owned. Chinese companies accounted for the largest group, followed by Russian, Turkish, Kazakh and South Korean businesses.
Ildus Khalitov, a representative of Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development in Uzbekistan, said more than 3,500 companies with Russian capital were operating in the country, accounting for almost 20% of all foreign-invested enterprises.
He said Russian businesses were increasingly entering Uzbekistan to localise production and gain access to third-country markets. One Russian-Uzbek technology park, he added, was already fully occupied by resident companies.
Timur Kornilov, managing director of the Skolkovo Foundation, said around 70 of the foundation’s 3,500 resident companies were operating in Uzbekistan, describing this as a relatively small number.
In September, the foundation signed an agreement with Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation and approved a roadmap for establishing an artificial intelligence centre in Tashkent. The target timeframe is 2027–2028.
Kornilov identified the limited size of Uzbekistan’s venture capital market as one of the factors holding back the country’s development as a regional innovation hub. He estimated the market at around US$145–150 million, with approximately 13 funds. He also cited a shortage of skilled personnel and the need to harmonise business conditions across countries in the region.
Ekaterina Yelmanova, deputy chairwoman of the management board of Rosbank, said the bank had been using its own end-to-end artificial intelligence platform since 2023, covering everything from data processing to model management.
She said around two-thirds of the bank’s architecture consisted of in-house developments. Rosbank was ready to cooperate with Uzbek partners on banking platforms and artificial intelligence.
Hasan Rakhmatov, chairman of the supervisory board of Asia Alliance Bank, said customers expected integrated platforms and rapid solutions, while speed and security remained key requirements.
