Author: Dilshod Ergashev

The capital generated UZS 16.7 trillion of a UZS 30.7 trillion national market in the first eight months of 2026, underscoring a sharp geographic concentration in Uzbekistan’s education sector.

Uzbekistan’s Central Bank has restructured its financial regulatory sandbox, adding three testing tracks, opening applications to foreign firms, and requiring consumer disclosures on trial-stage services.

Construction minister Sherzod Khidoyatov told parliament that 4,973 lifts have exceeded their service life, while a presidential decree orders nearly 5,000 units repaired or replaced by 2030 and a new digital platform now gates occupancy certificates on lift compliance.

A revised law signed by President Mirziyoyev on 14 October requires Uzbekistan’s Constitutional Court to livestream hearings and introduce digital case management by 1 January 2028, while imposing strict new procedural deadlines and an annual accountability report to parliament.

The ADB’s representative in Uzbekistan says the bank will prioritise semiconductor manufacturing and special economic zones over traditional infrastructure, aiming to help the doubly landlocked country offset steep export transport costs.

Wizz Air will place Uzbek-speaking staff on all its Uzbekistan flights in 2025 after the Competition Committee investigated a passenger who was refused safety information in his language and treated rudely when he asked for it.

Supreme audit officials from Uzbekistan and Latvia met in Riga on 18 August 2026 at a high-level forum with EU Eastern Partnership institutions, reaffirming a cooperation framework that has grown from training workshops into a multi-year institutional partnership.

British Ambassador Timothy Smart is departing Tashkent after three years, leaving behind a bilateral trade relationship that expanded nearly eightfold, a new international commercial court in the works, and deepened security ties — with a high-level Uzbek delegation to London still to come.

A visually impaired Tashkent resident was denied a routine power of attorney on July 24 because a 2019 Ministry of Justice regulation prohibits the facsimile signatures that national disability law explicitly authorises. The Tashkent City Department of Justice defended the refusal, citing a Cabinet of Ministers resolution that requires a specialist of a profession that does not officially exist.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang visited Tashkent on 17 October 2026, meeting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov. Beijing pledged to increase imports of Uzbek products, reaffirmed commitment to the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, and identified energy, artificial intelligence and modern agriculture as priority areas for expanded cooperation.

President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed legislation imposing life imprisonment for sexual violence against children under 14, as the government simultaneously announced a 30% rise in heating tariffs, dismissed the defense minister, reshuffled four Tashkent district governors, and arrested a deputy district governor for a $25,000 bribe.

The Competition Committee reviewed 878 draft regulatory acts submitted through the government’s unified legislative portal in 2025 and found that 425 — nearly half — contained provisions contradicting competition law. The rate was highest for Presidential-level acts, where 147 of 239 drafts, or 61.5%, were flagged.