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[Geography]
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[People]
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[Transportation]
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[Communication]
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[Defense]
Uzbekistan is a dry, landlocked country of which 10% consists of intensely
cultivated, irrigated river valleys. It is one of the poorest states of the
former USSR with 60% of its population living in overpopulated rural
communities. Nevertheless, Uzbekistan is the world's third largest cotton
exporter, a major producer of gold and natural gas, and a regionally
significant producer of chemicals and machinery. Since independence, the
government has sought to prop up the Soviet-style command economy with
subsidies and tight controls on prices and production. Such policies have
buffered the economy from the sharp declines in output and high inflation
experienced by many other former Soviet republics. They had become
increasingly unsustainable, however, as inflation moves along at 14% per
month and as Russia has forced the Uzbek government to introduce its own
currency. Faced with mounting economic problems, the government has begun to
move on a reform agenda and cooperate with international financial
institutions, announced an acceleration of privatization, and stepped up
efforts to attract foreign investors. Nevertheless, the regime is likely to
find it difficult to sustain its drive for economic reform.
GDP - purchasing power parity - $54.5 billion (1994 estimate as extrapolated
from World Bank estimate for 1992)
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National product real growth rate:
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National product per capita:
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Inflation rate (consumer prices):
14% per month (1994 est.)
0.3% includes only officially registered unemployed; large numbers of
underemployed workers (December 1994)
$NA, including capital expenditures of $NA
$943.7 million to outside the FSU countries (1994)
cotton, gold, natural gas, mineral fertilizers, ferrous metals, textiles,
food products
Russia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe, US
$1.15 billion from outside the FSU countries (1994)
grain, machinery and parts, consumer durables, other foods
principally other FSU countries, Czech Republic
growth rate 1% (1994 est.)
textiles, food processing, machine building, metallurgy, natural gas
cotton, vegetables, fruits, grain, livestock
illicit cultivator of cannabis and opium poppy; mostly for CIS consumption;
limited government eradication programs; used as transshipment point for
illicit drugs to Western Europe
the IMF has established a Systemic Transformation Facility of $74 million
and the World Bank has made a rehabilitation loan of $160 million with other
project loans pending; estimated annual external financing requirements for
1995-96 of $600 million to $700 million
introduced provisional som-coupons 10 November 1993 which circulated
parallel to the Russian rubles; became the sole legal currency 31 January
1994; was replaced in July 1994 by the som currency
soms per US$1 - 25 (yearend 1994)
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