Samarkand will become a city with population of over 1 million, announced the Samarkand province governor Erkinjon Turdimov on March 31 at a meeting with young people.
According to him, Samarkand will become a million-residents city by the latest end of 2021, preparations are underway to this end.
“In fact, there are already one million people living in Samarkand [unofficially]. Several nearby districts were attached to the city. We want to make Samarkand a million-residents city with five districts,” said Erkinjon Turdimov.
He noted that the million-plus city has a "special status", which, among other things, will help to increase its investment attractiveness.
“Any business, before investing money in any place, inquires in the size of the population. He asks if there is enough consumers and manpower or not, only then he invests money. Because if there are a lot of people in the city, then this means a lot of consumption. Therefore, million-plus cities have a special status,” he said.
Erkinjon Turdimov cited Kazakhstan as an example, whose population is almost two times less than that of Uzbekistan (18.9 million versus 34.6 million people). He pointed out that in the neighboring country there are three million-plus cities - Almaty, Nur-Sultan and Shymkent, and in Uzbekistan - only Tashkent.
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, during his visit to the Namangan province in June last year, stated that Namangan city "needs to strive to become a city with a population of one million." The head of state also touched upon the investment attractiveness of such cities.
