Uzbekistan’s GDP grows by 8.1% in 1H

According to the State Statistics Committee of Uzbekistan, the volume of GDP exceeded 61 trillion soums in the reporting period.

Share of small businesses in the GDP made up 43.9%. Share of services in the GDP grew from 52.4% in the first half of 2013 to 52.7% in the same period of 2014.

Industrial production rose by 8.1% in January-June 2014, agriculture production – 6.9%, investments into fixed capital – 10.8% (in US dollar equivalent – 12.8%), construction works – 17.4%, retail trade turnover - 13.7% and market services – 14.2%.

Uzbekistan produced over 8 million tonnes of grain. Some 4,486 individual houses on standard projects from planned 11,000 were commissioned in 2014.

The state budget was executed with 0.1% surplus to GDP. The inflation rate did not exceed the forecasted volume.

In the reporting period, foreign trade turnover of Uzbekistan exceeded US$14 billion and rose by 6.3% year-on-year.

The exports of Uzbekistan reached US$7.22 billion (+8% year-on-yea) and imports – US$6.74 billion (+4.6%). Foreign trade surplus reached US$482.1 million.

Uzbekistan created 506,400 new jobs within the programme on creation of new jobs and employment in the first half of 2014, of which 303,200 or 59.9% were created in rural areas.

Over 3.1 trillion soums were directed to implementation of the state programme “The Year of Healthy Children” to protect maternity ad childhood, education, sports, etc.

Road maps for about 144 insolvent enterprises were implemented and financial and economic conditions at 109 enterprises were improved. They produced goods and rendered services for 3.1 trillion soums and exported goods for about US$118 million.

Over 1,330 old equipments were updated at the large enterprises. The prime cost at production decreased by8.9% in average.

In past six months of 2014, the country completed implementation of 64 projects with total cost of US$680 million, which were included to investment programme for 2014. About 1,651 new production objects were commissioned.

About 86 state assets were realized for 25.5 billion soums to small businesses and about 19,400 unused state objects were rented.

The bank issued loans for 4.8 trillion soums in January-June 2014, which rose by 1.3 times year-on-year. Share of small businesses in industry rose from 27% to 28.4%, employment – from 75.8% to 76.4%.