Uzbekistan is planning to open its largest gold mining fields to foreign tourists in a bid to develop industrial tourism.

The State Committee for Tourism Development said on February 1 it was currently studying the possibility of turning the country's largest Amantaytau and Daugiztau gold deposits, in the central Kyzylkum Desert, into tourist attractions, where foreign visitors could watch the process of gold extraction and blasting operations in mines without interfering with production processes.

To ensure the safety of tourists, it is planned to organise remote monitoring of rock explosions and production processes at sites with panoramic glazing on the territory of the gold mine, as well as to create additional service facilities for guests.

Global industrial tourism has been gaining in popularity in recent years. Uzbekistan has huge geological and mineralogical advantages in this sector, the tourism committee noted.

According to the scale of ore reserves, the convenience of technological conditions for extraction, the high quality of products and other characteristics, Uzbekistan`s ore reserves are among unique deposits in the world.

Over the past four years, the government has taken a series of measures to boost various forms of tourism, with the goal of receiving more than 9mn foreign tourists by 2025 and raising the proportion of the tourism industry in gross domestic product from 2.3% in 2017 to 5%.