Uzbekistan Economic Report, April 2013 : Economic Development and Reforms - Achievements and Challenges

This regular economic report records the economic activities of Uzbekistan for the year 2013-2014. Uzbekistan’s outlook remains largely dependent on commodity prices. The chief external factors affecting economic performance of Uzbekistan are favo...

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Main Author: World Bank
Format: Report
Language:English
en_US
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/245641486554815984/Uzbekistan-Economic-development-and-reforms-achievements-and-challenges
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26060
id okr-10986-26060
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-260602021-04-23T14:04:33Z Uzbekistan Economic Report, April 2013 : Economic Development and Reforms - Achievements and Challenges World Bank ECONOMIC GROWTH SOCIETY SUSTAINABLE GROWTH ANALYSIS FINANCE POLICY economic outlook trade debt labor market poverty fiscal policy monetary policy This regular economic report records the economic activities of Uzbekistan for the year 2013-2014. Uzbekistan’s outlook remains largely dependent on commodity prices. The chief external factors affecting economic performance of Uzbekistan are favorable global commodity price trends for gold, gas, cotton, and copper. Although remittance inflows may suffer as the outlook weakens for Russia, government increases in wages and social payments will help to sustain private consumption. Thus, growth in Uzbekistan is not expected to slow down considerably, as surplus current account, high fiscal savings, external reserves, ongoing investment program and wage increase and remittance inflow in 2013–14 would mitigate the impacts of a continued global slowdown. However, the poor business environment will continue to deter most Western investors, and the authorities likely to continue impeding private-sector activity by retaining currency controls and high tariffs and excise taxes on imports. Inflation is expected to remain at around 7 percent in 2013–15. Global food prices are forecast to gradually decline, and more modest growth in net foreign assets and monetary indicators would offset higher government spending and limit inflationary pressure. Although the short-term growth outlook remains favorable, downside risks are high due to a still weak global situation. The first risk is external and stems from a possible slowdown in economic activity in Russia (and a consequent reduction in remittance flows to Uzbekistan) and likely lower prices for some of Uzbekistan’s traditional commodity exports. The second risk is internal and comes from inappropriate integration of generally sound macroeconomic policies with weak structural policies in the country that negatively affect business incentives and hamper improvements in productivity and appropriate job creation making long term growth unsustainable. 2017-02-14T15:37:29Z 2017-02-14T15:37:29Z 2013-04 Report http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/245641486554815984/Uzbekistan-Economic-development-and-reforms-achievements-and-challenges http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26060 English en_US CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Economic & Sector Work :: Economic Updates and Modeling Economic & Sector Work Europe and Central Asia Uzbekistan
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
en_US
topic ECONOMIC GROWTH
SOCIETY
SUSTAINABLE GROWTH
ANALYSIS
FINANCE
POLICY
economic outlook
trade
debt
labor market
poverty
fiscal policy
monetary policy
spellingShingle ECONOMIC GROWTH
SOCIETY
SUSTAINABLE GROWTH
ANALYSIS
FINANCE
POLICY
economic outlook
trade
debt
labor market
poverty
fiscal policy
monetary policy
World Bank
Uzbekistan Economic Report, April 2013 : Economic Development and Reforms - Achievements and Challenges
geographic_facet Europe and Central Asia
Uzbekistan
description This regular economic report records the economic activities of Uzbekistan for the year 2013-2014. Uzbekistan’s outlook remains largely dependent on commodity prices. The chief external factors affecting economic performance of Uzbekistan are favorable global commodity price trends for gold, gas, cotton, and copper. Although remittance inflows may suffer as the outlook weakens for Russia, government increases in wages and social payments will help to sustain private consumption. Thus, growth in Uzbekistan is not expected to slow down considerably, as surplus current account, high fiscal savings, external reserves, ongoing investment program and wage increase and remittance inflow in 2013–14 would mitigate the impacts of a continued global slowdown. However, the poor business environment will continue to deter most Western investors, and the authorities likely to continue impeding private-sector activity by retaining currency controls and high tariffs and excise taxes on imports. Inflation is expected to remain at around 7 percent in 2013–15. Global food prices are forecast to gradually decline, and more modest growth in net foreign assets and monetary indicators would offset higher government spending and limit inflationary pressure. Although the short-term growth outlook remains favorable, downside risks are high due to a still weak global situation. The first risk is external and stems from a possible slowdown in economic activity in Russia (and a consequent reduction in remittance flows to Uzbekistan) and likely lower prices for some of Uzbekistan’s traditional commodity exports. The second risk is internal and comes from inappropriate integration of generally sound macroeconomic policies with weak structural policies in the country that negatively affect business incentives and hamper improvements in productivity and appropriate job creation making long term growth unsustainable.
format Report
author World Bank
author_facet World Bank
author_sort World Bank
title Uzbekistan Economic Report, April 2013 : Economic Development and Reforms - Achievements and Challenges
title_short Uzbekistan Economic Report, April 2013 : Economic Development and Reforms - Achievements and Challenges
title_full Uzbekistan Economic Report, April 2013 : Economic Development and Reforms - Achievements and Challenges
title_fullStr Uzbekistan Economic Report, April 2013 : Economic Development and Reforms - Achievements and Challenges
title_full_unstemmed Uzbekistan Economic Report, April 2013 : Economic Development and Reforms - Achievements and Challenges
title_sort uzbekistan economic report, april 2013 : economic development and reforms - achievements and challenges
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2017
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/245641486554815984/Uzbekistan-Economic-development-and-reforms-achievements-and-challenges
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26060
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