00:02Official figures presented at a meeting shared by President Sharqiyat Mirziyayev put Uzbekistan's first half economic growth at 8.5
00:11% compared with the same period last year.
00:14The same figures put investment at around 24 billion euros, while exports total at approximately 12.2 billion euros.
00:22The government linked the results to nearly a decade of market reforms.
00:26President Mirziyayev said faster growth would be needed to improve living standards.
00:32The reform program has included changes to the exchange rate system and the country's monetary framework.
00:48Uzbekistan has made a wave of big reforms starting from 2018,
00:53and one of them was adopting the new central bank law,
00:58which strengthened credibility and independence of the central bank of Uzbekistan.
01:05The changes have also reshaped the wider economy.
01:09Services recorded at fastest expansion in the first half,
01:12followed by construction, while industrial output also increased.
01:16If we compare the economic structure of Uzbekistan between 2017 and nowadays,
01:24the economy has moved towards industrial service model from agrarian economy.
01:31But the official review also found uneven export performance.
01:35Of 509 export-oriented facilities commissioned over the past three years,
01:41208 had yet to enter foreign markets.
01:43Formal employment remains another measure of how widely growth is being felt.
01:49The government says training and business support will be linked more closely to jobs and household incomes.
01:55What I can see, a lot of reforms and a lot of efforts are being undertaken to formalize employment.
02:02But it is, of course, a very big transition and it will, I understand, also require a big effort and
02:09maybe a little bit of time.
02:11Employment agencies have been tasked with expanding training and helping more people into work across the regions.
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