President Shavkat Mirziyoyev announced on 16 October the creation of an Investors’ Council for the fuel and energy sector, placing his daughter and Head of the Presidential Administration, Saida Mirziyoyeva, at its helm. The president cited bureaucracy and corruption as the explicit reasons for the new body.
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev announced on October 16 that Saida Mirziyoyeva will chair a newly created energy sector investors council, established in direct response to complaints from major international energy companies about land allocation delays, grid connection bottlenecks and slow issuance of technical specifications.
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.
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has announced the creation of an Investors’ Council for the fuel and energy sector, appointing Saida Mirziyoyeva, head of the Presidential Administration, to lead the body. The council is designed to resolve persistent administrative bottlenecks — from land allocation to grid connections — that have slowed major energy infrastructure projects.
Six energy agreements worth US$4.7 billion were signed at an investor dialogue chaired by President Mirziyoyev, adding 3,000 MW of generation and 400 MW of storage capacity. A new Investors’ Council will be chaired by Presidential Administration head Saida Mirziyoyeva, while tenders for a further 2,200 MW of solar and wind capacity are imminent.
The number of people living in acute multidimensional poverty has reached 1.2 billion — a rise of 51.5 million and the first increase recorded since the Global MPI was launched in 2010. A new UNDP and Oxford University report finds that more than half of those affected are children, and that regional neighbour Tajikistan is among the few countries to have cut both poverty rates and total numbers of deprived people.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang visited Tashkent on 17 October 2026, meeting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov. Beijing pledged to increase imports of Uzbek products, reaffirmed commitment to the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, and identified energy, artificial intelligence and modern agriculture as priority areas for expanded cooperation.
The State Assets Management Agency has confirmed the cancellation of oil-field licenses held by Sanoat Energetika Guruhi and the termination of the $100 million Fergana Oil Refinery sale, as the company’s financial collapse leaves nearly 39,000 workers owed $131 million in wages.
