Business & State Assets
British Ambassador Timothy Smart is departing Tashkent after three years, leaving behind a bilateral trade relationship that expanded nearly eightfold, a new international commercial court in the works, and deepened security ties — with a high-level Uzbek delegation to London still to come.
Uzbekistan’s Deputy Minister of Investments, Industry and Trade Shohrukh Gulyamov held a series of bilateral meetings with major UAE companies in Abu Dhabi, advancing project frameworks for water treatment in New Tashkent, logistics digitalisation, gas transportation financing and urban development.
Saida Mirziyoyeva, Head of the Presidential Administration, met Henderson Land Group Chairman Peter Lee on October 16 to discuss potential joint projects in renewable energy, New Tashkent infrastructure and education, as Tashkent seeks to deepen investment ties with Hong Kong’s largest holding companies.
Founded in Uzbekistan in 2015, Bellissimo Pizza has moved from 100 domestic locations to an 11-branch footprint in Kazakhstan within a single year, acquiring the assets of a local Papa John’s franchisee and targeting 200 restaurants across the country by 2030.
Aksa Enerji’s chairman announced plans to sign grid management agreements for three additional regions within a week, following a meeting with President Mirziyoyev on October 16. The move extends a public-private partnership model first applied in Samarkand, where the Turkish firm committed to investing $1 billion over 30 years.
Deputy Prime Minister Jamshid Khojayev and Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov led talks in Fergana that produced plans for 17 joint industrial projects worth $350 million, a major Wildberries logistics complex near Tashkent, and a bilateral science and technology strategy stretching to 2040.
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has announced the preparation of 128 new oil and gas investment blocks carrying estimated reserves of 5.8 trillion cubic metres of gas and 560 million tonnes of liquid hydrocarbons, while setting a deadline of end-2027 for transferring the country’s entire propane supply network to private operators.
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has announced that private operators will be invited to manage electricity distribution networks in the Jizzakh and Tashkent regions, scaling up a model piloted in Samarkand where Turkish company Aksa Enerji holds a 30-year management contract requiring at least $350 million in investment over its first decade.
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has signed six major energy project agreements totalling $4.7 billion and declared that reducing losses in the electricity grid will now be a central investment priority alongside launching new generation capacity.
Advertisement
