Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise Finance in Uzbekistan: Challenges and Opportunities

Customs policy. Customs reform in 2018 has significantly simplified and sharply 
reduced the costs related to foreign trade. Uzbekistan significantly cut its import
tariffs, to attenuate the ensuing inflation and enhance competitiveness. As observed 
earlier, import tariff rates for about 8,000 out of 10,800 items were reduced (for about 
5,000 items, tariffs were eliminated) to mitigate the adverse effect on import-intensive 
companies (and prices) and to improve the competitiveness of the economy. As
a result, the simple average tariff was reduced from 15.2 to 6.3%, whereas the
trade-weighted average went from 13.9 to 5.9%, as not all groups saw their tariffs 
reduced homogeneously. This broad reduction in tariffs has provided a strong stepping 
stone for an ambitious agenda on trade liberalization; the authorities are taking initial 
steps to broaden their reach and reinitiate their World Trade Organization accession 
process. The customs procedures will be streamlined and improved to lower costs
and administrative burdens for exporting SMEs after the adoption of a new edition of the 
Customs Code in 2019. 
Licenses and permits. Due to the reform,
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new Law on Permit Procedures was 
adopted, pursuant to which, 7 licenses and 35 permits were abolished. Procedures of 
issuing licenses and permits were significantly simplified. Fees for licenses and permits 
decreased significantly.
Public services. Uzbekistan established the Agency for Public Services under the 
Ministry of Justice in order to provide public services to business entities according
to the “One-Stop Shop” principle.
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Small businesses can obtain 16 types of public 
services, such as business registration, permits and license, through 194 one-stop 
centers. All these measures were aimed at abolishing the requirement to visit
other government agencies, the elimination of red tape and reducing the cost of
doing business.
These reforms led to an improvement in Uzbekistan’s ranking in the World Bank’s 2019 
Doing Business Report, from 166th position in 2012 to 76th in 2018. The country has 
improved its rating in only four indicators. Uzbekistan climbed by one place in Dealing 
with Construction Permits, two places in Registering Property, and 3 places in Trading 
Across Borders. 
The country also made trading across borders faster by introducing an electronic 
application and payment system for several export certificates, reducing the time for 
export documentary compliance. Uzbekistan still needs to improve its ranking in several 
areas, such as Getting Credit (60th), Resolving Insolvency (91st), Dealing with 
Construction Permit (134th) and Trading across the Borders (165th).