Uzbekistan is booming. Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev rattled off an impressive string of successes in his keynote speech at the Tashkent International Investment Forum (TIIF) on June 17 to a hall packed with business partners, regional dignitaries and foreign investors who have come to see for themselves the changes he has wrought in his decade in office.

When the first Tashkent International Investment Forum was held in 2022, the stated goal was to grow GDP to $160bn by 2030. That target will be hit this year — four years early. The government has already reset the bar to $200bn by 2030, with a longer-term ambition of $240bn by the end of the next decade.

Mirziyoyev took over in 2016 and opened the pariah nation up to the rest of the world. Since then, the economy has grown by at least 6% every year, pausing only briefly in the pandemic in 2020 — even then, Uzbekistan was one of only two countries in the world that avoided recession. Growth is now accelerating from even that fast rate. GDP expanded 7.7% last year and shows no signs of slowing this year. Foreign investment inflows reached $39.7bn in 2025 and makes up almost a third (32%) of GDP. Over nine years, the country has attracted around $120bn in foreign capital, against just $4.1bn in the year before the reform programme started.

This year's forum drew nearly 4,000 guests from over 100 countries, with big contingents from China and the Middle East — a measure of how seriously the world is now taking what is happening in the most populous of the five Stans.

The flagship moment this year was the IPO of the Uzbekistan National Investment Fund — a portfolio of stakes in 13 state companies — on the London Stock Exchange, the largest LSE listing in five years. Taking the stage to a packed hall, Mirziyoyev outlined five priority areas where he wants investor capital and partnership. Taken together, they amount to the most coherent reform blueprint of any country in the region.

1. A new legal architecture for investors

Mirziyoyev's first priority is building the institutional foundations that serious international capital requires, something Uzbekistan has historically lacked.

"It is quite natural that any investor seeks to invest in countries where the rights and freedoms of entrepreneurs are reliably protected, where the economy is growing at an accelerated pace, where a broad opportunity exists," he said.

The centrepiece is the Tashkent International Financial Center, announced in March and now being given constitutional backing. The centre will operate under English common law, with zero corporate income tax, zero VAT, zero property tax and zero customs duties for participants. Capital movement will be unrestricted, transactions can be conducted in any currency, and an independent international commercial court staffed by foreign judges will handle disputes.

"As a result of these measures, investors will receive guaranteed international legal protection right here in Uzbekistan," the president said.

Uzbekistan is also joining the UN Singapore Convention on mediation. The legal regime will be in place for an initial period of 50 years, a signal that this is not a temporary concession but a structural commitment.

2. Opening the capital markets

Uzbekistan's financial system has been largely closed to outside participation. Mirziyoyev wants to change that — fast.

"We have placed bonds for more than $16bn in international markets. Furthermore, we have introduced corporate eurobonds denominated in the national currency."

The Tashkent Stock Exchange (TSE) has already has several rounds of reforms and is open to international investors who can repatriate profits in any currency they like, but the exchange still needs a lot of work. What will come into focus in the new reforms is building up the local government and corporate bond markets to create fresh liquidity and also assets to support the development of savings and retail investments.

The UzNIF IPO is the opening act, not the finale. A pipeline of further state company IPOs is being prepared, the president said, although the government is moving cautiously with the sell offs. New legislation on capital markets and alternative investment funds is coming, and Uzbekistan is launching a programme of sovereign Islamic bonds (sukuk), with the aim of attracting at least $1bn-10bn in additional capital.

The privatisation programme is also accelerating: this year, assets worth $6bn will go to auction, including real estate, state shareholdings and land plots. For investors who have been watching from the sidelines, the message is that the window is open.

3. High value-added manufacturing

The logic that drives Mirziyoyev's economic thinking is simple and consistent: stop exporting raw materials, add value domestically, multiply revenues. It’s a meme that runs through all his reform initiatives.

He applied it to cotton — banning raw exports and forcing investment into textiles, with export revenues rising multi-fold as a result. Now he is applying the same logic across the economy.

"Our main priority in industry is to attract investments to expand high value-added chains," he said. 

The target sectors are chemicals, pharmaceuticals, electrical engineering and advanced manufacturing. The president offered comprehensive state support to investors willing to build processing and production capacity inside Uzbekistan rather than simply extracting its resources, telling delegates: "We are ready to provide comprehensive support of your initiatives in the new economy sectors."

The underlying bet is that Uzbekistan's combination of cheap labour, abundant raw materials and a government willing to offer real incentives can replicate, across multiple sectors, what happened in textiles.

4. Green energy and artificial intelligence

Uzbekistan's fourth priority area pairs the two defining investment themes of the current decade.

Initially reluctant to invest into green energy, once the results came in and the low cost of this source of power became apparent, the government has thrown itself into the green revolution wholeheartedly to become the green champion of Central Asia.

On energy, Mirziyoyev has doubled the original target and called for 54% of electricity generation from renewables within a few years, alongside investment opportunities in storage systems, grid modernisation and green-powered data centres.

"We pay tremendous attention to green energy. This is a great goal that we want to achieve — and we have the experience that we will definitely achieve it."

Incidentally, Mirziyoyev signed off on a deal to build the country’s first nuclear power station while attending Russia’s St Petersburg International Economic Forum last month as the government seeks to diversify power sources. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin was another speaker during the plenary session, highlighting the strong economic ties that continue between Russia and Uzbekistan.

On artificial intelligence, the president cited forecasts of at least $10bn in AI-generated added value in Uzbekistan over the next five years. A national AI strategy has been adopted, a special economic zone for AI projects and data centres has been created in Karakalpakstan, the westernmost region of Uzbekistan — with full tax exemption until 2034, state-funded infrastructure and a preferential electricity tariff of five cents per kilowatt hour — and an International Digital Technology Centre is being established with its own special legal regime.

"The development of the artificial intelligence sector is a crucial imperative of our time," the president said. "Our main task is to improve the lives of all layers of the population by using artificial intelligence — utilising it extensively in education, public services and business processes," the president said.

5. Transport, logistics and regional connectivity

One of only two double-landlocked countries in the world, Uzbekistan has always faced a structural disadvantage in global trade. Mirziyoyev's fifth priority is turning that constraint into a competitive advantage by making Uzbekistan the hub of a redrawn regional map.

"Access to international trade markets is of great importance for investors," Mirziyoyev said. The change is from trading with neighbours and improving logistics connecting them, to the grander scheme of building an East-West corridor connecting Asia and Europe, where Uzbekistan’s landlocked status plays a less significant role.

Three major corridors are in simultaneous development. The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway — long discussed, now under active construction — will link the country directly to Chinese export networks. The Trans-Afghan corridor, if realised, would give Uzbekistan direct access to southern seaports for the first time. And the Middle Corridor through the Caspian is being developed as a Europe-Asia route that bypasses Russia.

"By the full implementation of these projects, we will join the network of transport arteries connecting Asia and Europe," according to the president.

Domestically, a new Tashkent international airport with capacity for 20mn passengers a year is under construction. The president also invited investors into high-speed highways, logistics centres and dry ports. Beyond transport, a sixth priority, raised separately, is urban development: Uzbekistan's population is approaching 40mn, urbanisation is rising from 51% to a targeted 65% by 2034, and a new city adjacent to the capital is being built for 2mn residents. Housing construction alone represents a guaranteed market of at least $10bn a year.

The bottom line

Mirziyoyev closed with a line that cut through the diplomatic language of the occasion: "For us, investment is far more than a source of capital. It is a catalyst for advanced technologies, modern knowledge and expertise, new jobs and development that keeps pace with the demands of a rapidly changing world."

Investment is a transformation, not a transaction. Mirziyoyev says that Uzbekistan is looking for partners not just money. The country is not simply offering cheap costs and natural resources. It is offering a system being rebuilt, with deliberate speed, to produce a different kind of economy.