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The Competition Committee of Uzbekistan assessed 878 draft regulatory legal acts submitted through the government’s unified legislative portal during 2025 and determined that 425 of them — 48 percent — contained norms that contradict existing legislation and competition law. The findings, published on the committee’s website, represent the most comprehensive annual picture yet of how frequently proposed government regulations conflict with market competition requirements before they are enacted.
The ex-ante review mechanism requires government ministries, agencies, and local authorities to submit draft laws, presidential decrees, and cabinet resolutions to the committee via the project.gov.uz portal before adoption. The committee then issues a formal conclusion on whether each draft contains provisions that would distort or restrict competition. The 2025 data covers all document types submitted across the full calendar year.
Presidential and Cabinet Drafts Most Affected
The violation rate was highest among draft Presidential decrees and resolutions: 147 of 239 such documents submitted in 2025 — 61.5 percent — were found to contain anti-competitive provisions. Among the 480 draft Cabinet of Ministers resolutions and orders reviewed, 216, or 45 percent, received adverse conclusions. Of 110 draft laws submitted, 46 — just over 50 percent — were flagged. Departmental regulatory acts fared better: 16 of 49 such drafts, or 32.7 percent, were found to conflict with competition requirements.
An earlier summary covering a subset of the year’s activity recorded 243 draft regulatory acts reviewed, of which 121 — exactly 50 percent — were assessed as containing norms contrary to legislative requirements. That subset included 76 draft Presidential acts, of which 40 (53 percent) were flagged, and 120 Cabinet of Ministers drafts, of which 63 (51 percent) received adverse conclusions.
Sectors Under Review
Among the specific draft acts reviewed and published by the committee were proposals spanning agriculture, industry, energy, and state property management. One draft Cabinet of Ministers resolution concerned the phased introduction of a cluster system for growing grain crops — a model that has previously drawn scrutiny for concentrating agricultural production under large operators. Another draft addressed measures for the rational use of state-owned property in Tashkent. A third covered the construction of a high-grade cement plant in the Farish district of Jizzakh region.
Further drafts reviewed included a Presidential decree on reducing imports and expanding domestic production of wood-particle boards and their alternatives, and a separate Presidential decree on introducing an automated control and accounting system for natural gas. The committee also reviewed a draft on the organisation of sanitary-hygiene training courses for designated population groups, and issued conclusions on creating equal conditions for manufacturers of cash register machines.
Ministerial Resistance to Committee Findings
The committee’s conclusions do not automatically block the adoption of flagged drafts, and some ministries have formally objected to the committee’s assessments. The Ministry of Energy disputed 23 of the 26 conclusions issued against its draft acts. The Ministry of Investment, Industry and Trade objected to 10 of 17 adverse conclusions it received. The evidence does not indicate the final legislative outcome of the disputed drafts — whether they were amended in response to the committee’s findings or adopted without change.
Significance of the Ex-Ante Review
The ex-ante competition assessment is designed to identify market-distorting provisions before they become binding law, rather than challenging them after adoption. A near-50 percent adverse finding rate across all document types suggests that anti-competitive provisions are being introduced routinely across multiple levels of government, and that the review mechanism is identifying a systemic pattern rather than isolated drafting errors. The committee’s published conclusions on individual draft acts are available through the project.gov.uz portal, where each document is assigned a unique identification number.