CM December 2021

COUNTRY FOCUS
Uzbekistan is on a
path to liberalisation
and growth.
Cotton on to
Uzbekistan
AUTHOR – Adam Bernstein
UZBEKISTAN has just celebrated
its 13th anniversary. Thirty
doesn’t make the doubly landlocked
country seem very old,
but it is, nevertheless, riddled
with history given its proximity
to the Old Silk Road and three key cities that
sit along the route – Samarkand, Bukhara, and
Khiva. With a capital revamped with Soviet architectural
influences following a 1966 earthquake,
Uzbekistan is said to be a wonderful mix of the
utilitarian and stunningly historical.
Not terribly large or small, the Muslim-majority,
but “staunchly secular nation” – as Euractiv.com
recently described it – has an area of 447,400 sq.
km and is the world’s 56th largest nation. It’s a tad
smaller than Sweden which has 450,295 sq. km and
a hair’s width larger than Morocco that occupies
446,500 sq. km. And it’s not far off being twice the
size of the UK which measures, in comparison, a
paltry 242,495 sq. km.
A former Soviet outlier, it’s now one of nine
members of the Commonwealth of Independent
States which formed when the USSR dissolved. It’s
surrounded by a series of ‘stan’s’ – Kazakhstan to
the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east,
Afghanistan to the south and Turkmenistan to the
west.
Its only sea is – was – a rather large lake, the
Aral Sea. But that, being an ecological disaster, is
another story that can be traced back to the 1960s
when irrigation systems were put in place by the
Soviets to serve the cotton industry.
The country is dry and sees relatively little
rainfall – 100 to 200mm annually (the UK receives
around 1150mm a year) and has a variance in
temperature that ranges from an average low of
-6oC to a high of 36oC.
Before progressing, it should be noted that data
outlined below should be taken with a pinch of
salt; much is inconsistent if not sketchy. Even the
Uzbek government’s own website quotes data that
harks back to 2016.
THE PEOPLE
World Population Review, based on current United
Nations data, puts the Uzbek population at 34m.
This figure is expected to grow to a peak of 44.4m
in 2070 after which it’s likely that it will decline.
At a rate of 1.48 percent, Uzbekistan’s population
growth is 79th in the world. This is down from
According to
Britannica.com,
a combination
of good sunlight,
short mild
winters, fertile
irrigated soil, and
good pastures,
makes Uzbekistan
well suited to
cattle, sheep and
cotton.
1.66 percent in 2016. The population is young with
a median age of 27.8 years versus 38.1 in the US
and 40.5 in the UK. Specifically, 39.8 percent of
the populace are under 24 years and 45.6 percent
are aged 25 to 54 years. Just 14.5 percent are over
55 years of age.
Overall population density is very low at 80
people per sq. km. Again, for comparison, the
UK has 281 people per sq. km. 2018 data from the
State Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan
on Statistics reckons that 2.57m live in the capital
Tashkent, 597,000 in Namangan, 530,000 in
Samarkand, 417,000 in Andijan, 310,000 in Nukus
and around a quarter of a million in each of the
next five largest towns and cities in the country.
Fundamentally though, the country is not
urbanised – UN data, albeit from 2010, reckoned
that just 37 percent of the population live in an
urbanised area. Now compare that to the UK with
83.9 percent living in urban areas.
And as for the demographic makeup of the
country, Indexmundi cites data that suggests that
Uzbekistan is ethnically 83.8 percent Uzbek, 4.8
percent Tajik, 2.5 percent Kazakh, 2.3 percent
Russian, 2.2 percent Karakalpak, 1.5 percent
Tatar, and 4.4 percent other.
Uzbek is the official language with 74.3 percent
speaking it, Russian is next with 14.2 percent, and
Tajik is in third place with 4.4 percent. English
might combined under ‘other’.
THE ECONOMY
The economy of Uzbekistan is small but
growing. The founding president of modern-day
Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, died in 2016. While he
aligned the country with the Russian government,
he also permitted US forces base rights post 9-11
in exchange for military and economic assistance.
His successor, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, is considered
by most to be pursuing a less autocratic path. The
World Bank commented as such when it published
a short briefing which noted that “Uzbekistan has
achieved substantial progress in transforming its
economy and society since 2017. The Government
is now moving on to the next stage of economic
reforms to address structural constraints, such
as the absence of factor markets and the state’s
economic dominance in the economy.”
And to make the point, Mirziyoyev told a
large event in August, as detailed on Euronews.
com, “that an overhaul of economic policy
Brave | Curious | Resilient / www.cicm.com / December 2021 / PAGE 24