Harnessing Uzbekistan’s Potential of Urbanization

“About the strategy of actions for further development of the Republic of Uzbekistan” (as amended on 10-12-2019).

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Government Policies and Programs 
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Presidential Decree on Urbanization
On 10 January 2019, Presidential Decree No. 5623 “on measures to fundamentally improve the process of 
urbanization” was signed into law. The Decree has set out goals for an entirely liberalized urban development 
sector: (i) full private property rights over urban land; (ii) free movement of people from rural to urban areas; 
(iii) optimizing agglomeration opportunities to provide urban employment; (iv) an expanded provision of 
housing, urban infrastructure and services, including via proper housing finance; (v) harnessing international 
know-how for improved urban development; and (vi) expansion of satellite centers in the proximity of cities. 
Such goals are to be achieved via several provisions, as specified in the Decree: 
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Define procedures for land privatization and compensation via the Cadaster Committee.
• 
Develop and approve a more detailed urbanization development concept.
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Establish the Agency for Urbanization under the Ministry of Economy and Industry to be in charge of 
urban policy, territorial development, and the optimal hierarchy of urban centers.
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Create the Urban Development Fund to recoup funding from land privatization and to invest in urban 
infrastructure and services provision, and support housing finance.
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Identify the land opportunities for urban development via the Ministry of Construction, the Cadaster 
Committee, and the Agency for Urbanization.
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Improve the quality of urban data via the State Committee on Statistics.
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Develop plans for public housing construction for the 2020–2025 period.
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Approve the Roadmap attached to the Decree which specifies institutional roles and target dates for the 
implementation of the urban sector reforms.
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Require the Central Bank to modernize procedures for the registration of mortgage loans.
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Require the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Justice to regulate the Urban Development Fund.
• 
Request the national media to publicize the new orientations of urban development.
An ambitious timeline was set for the implementation of most of the above measures, many of which were 
supposed to take place in 2019. The implementation progress of these urban development reforms is reported
in Section 2.
National Development Strategy to 2030
In the National Development Strategy of the Republic of Uzbekistan until 2030, the theme of urbanization 
and regional development has been further developed by the then Ministry of Economy and Industry, now the 
Ministry of Economic Development and Poverty Reduction.
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Although the strategy is already being used as a 
policy reference, the Council of Ministers has yet to approve it.
In its Section XII on “ensuring sustainable and balanced development of regions,” the strategy addresses the 
current imbalances among Uzbek regions in terms of their contribution to GDP creation as well as the levels 
of socioeconomic development. A number of measures are proposed to redress such imbalances, including 
creating new industrial clusters, techno-parks, and free transborder trade zones; diversifying the economic base 
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Government of Uzbekistan, Ministry of Economy and Industry. National Development Strategy of the Republic of Uzbekistan until 2030. 
Unpublished.

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Harnessing Uzbekistan’s Potential of Urbanization
of some regions; pursuing further decentralization; and developing regional growth poles. The strategy states 
the goal of achieving 60% of urbanization by 2030 through implementing the reforms identified in the Decree 
on Urbanization and preparing a National Strategy for Urbanization to 2030. It also states the government’s 
intention to increase the number of cities from the current 119 to 135 by 2030 via the reclassification of several 
smaller urban settlements.
Implementation of Reforms and Investment Programs
Creation and Closure of the Urbanization Agency
In May 2019, Uzbekistan’s Urbanization Agency was created as an entity that would spearhead the 
implementation of the new vision for the urban sector as set out by the January 2019 Decree on Urbanization. 
The Council of Ministers Decree specified the following as the Urbanization Agency’s institutional mandates:
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Implement a unified state policy in the sphere of regulation of urbanization processes.
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Conduct long-term planning of rates, stages, and results of industrialization policy; analyze long-term 
demographic trends in the city and in the countryside; calculate the demographic capacity of cities in the 
context of rapid industrialization; and calculate the amount of labor requirements in the cities.
• 
Identify the “growth poles,” select the administrative centers, coordinate educational policies, form a 
labor market, and regulate internal and external migration.
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Develop a comprehensive program to stimulate the movement of labor from villages to cities, and 
provide institutional measures to organize training of villagers in new industrial specialties.
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Manage the formation of urban agglomerations, taking into account the creation of satellite cities, 
including the development of social, engineering, communal and road transport infrastructures through 
the introduction of advanced energy-saving, and environment friendly technologies and materials.
• 
Regulate the integrated development of the urban system of settlements, and the formation of an 
effective ratio of small, medium, and large cities, considering international practice.
The responsibilities of the Urbanization Agency include the preparation of the detailed Urbanization 
Development Concept. While an advanced draft was prepared with ADB’s expertise support, as of September 
2020, the Concept document had not yet been approved by the President. The draft presents a number 
of significant and relevant recommendations to address the constraints of the current system of urban 
development, including a set of detailed solutions, and indicates three possible stages of implementation of the 
Urbanization Strategy to 2030. The Concept document also flags the urbanization, housing, infrastructure, and 
service provision quantitative targets to be achieved by 2030.
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With the support of ADB and World Bank, the Agency of Urbanization held a policy workshop in September 
2019 to lay out the broad guidelines of urban policy development, as its mandate included the coordination and 
harmonization of the support provided by IFIs. The agency also sought the support of the United Nations Human 
Settlements Programme (UN Habitat) in establishing urban indicators to be adopted at the national level. 
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CIS Legislation. 2019. Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan of 31 May 2019 No. 450 “About measures for the organization