Uzbekistan plans to attract $14 billion in investments under public-private partnership terms by 2026, announced Deputy Minister of Investments and Foreign Trade Shukhrat Vafaev at the Tashkent International Investment Forum on March 25.
Infrastructure is extremely important for the private sector, but it is also “extremely expensive,” he stressed.
“More than $6 billion needs to be funded annually for road infrastructure alone in order to maintain an acceptable, decent quality. This money, of course, in not available either through budget financing or through our external borrowings,” the Deputy Minister noted.
The only way is a much more of PPP, other forms of cooperation in partnership with the private sector, stimulating its productive and profitable investment in the modernization of various parts of the infrastructure, he said.
“We have the first successes in the field of renewable energy in projects based on PPP mechanisms in this sector. We extended this to traditional energy, generation of electricity through PPP, transactions with investors for the construction and operation of Gazli gas station,” said Shukhrat Vafaev.
He added that this experience and the lessons learned are planned to be used in healthcare, education, transport, primarily road and rail, airports, electricity, gas distribution and others.
“Thus, our ambition is USD 14 billion of investment in PPP deals by 2026. It is ambitious but manageable and we are confident that we can replicate our success in the power generation system,” he stressed.
