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Uzbekistan’s Association of Non-Alcoholic Beverage and Juice Producers, UzBev, has publicly opposed a government decision to cap white sugar imports at 300,000 tonnes a year from 1 January 2027, warning that the measure will raise production costs across the food industry, fuel inflation and may breach the country’s obligations as it seeks membership of the World Trade Organisation.
The quota was established by Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 417, signed on 30 July 2026. It divides the annual allowance among three categories of enterprise and requires the allocation to be distributed through electronic auctions on a dedicated platform due to launch by 1 December 2026. The government retains the right to revise volumes every six months based on consumption levels, factory utilisation and price conditions.
UzBev executive director Alfiya Musina said the 300,000-tonne ceiling is fundamentally misaligned with domestic demand. Uzbekistan’s annual sugar requirement is estimated at 650,000 to 700,000 tonnes. Customs Committee data show that in the first nine months of 2026 alone the country imported 652,800 tonnes of sugar and raw cane sugar worth $440.1 million — 36 percent more than in the same period of the previous year. Musina acknowledged that the customs figure includes raw cane sugar processed domestically and cannot be compared directly with the white-sugar quota, but said the association still wants the government to explain how a 300,000-tonne limit will meet industry needs and prevent a raw-material shortage.
A Quota in Name Only?
UzBev’s sharpest legal objection concerns the structure of the mechanism itself. Resolution No. 416, issued the day before on 29 July 2026, sets out a general framework for tariff-rate quotas and explicitly allows imports above the set volume subject to the standard customs duty. Resolution No. 417, however, specifies neither the in-quota nor the above-quota duty rates for white sugar, nor does it clarify whether imports can continue once the ceiling is reached.
“By its actual content, such a mechanism may prove to be not a tariff quota but a quantitative restriction that limits the very possibility of importing,” Musina said. That distinction matters because Article XI:1 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade — GATT 1994 — prohibits quantitative import restrictions except in defined circumstances. “Simply renaming an import quota a ‘tariff’ quota does not resolve the problem: the WTO evaluates not the label of a measure but its content and actual effect on trade,” the association’s statement reads.
A further inconsistency flagged by UzBev is that Resolution No. 417 provides for electronic auctions to allocate quota shares, a mechanism absent from the general framework in Resolution No. 416. The association is calling for the publication of bidding criteria, volume-allocation rules, equal-access guarantees and safeguards against quota concentration among a small number of importers.
Hidden Decree, Subsidised Rivals
Resolution No. 417 also extends preferential treatment to Uzbekistan’s two main sugar producers, Angren Shakar and Xorazm Shakar. The decree allows both companies to restructure loan repayments to Uzpromstroibank over up to five years, including a two-year grace period, and provides for partial compensation of interest costs and the preparation of tax concessions through to 2031. The resolution also directs that state organisations and enterprises be supplied with domestically produced sugar as a priority.
UzBev does not contest the principle of supporting domestic industry but argues that preferential procurement based on origin may conflict with the national-treatment obligation in Article III:4 of GATT, which requires imported goods to be treated no less favourably than like domestic products in internal regulations. The association notes that GATT exemptions for government procurement do not automatically extend to purchases for commercial activity or resale.
The domestic producers the policy is designed to protect have been losing ground for years. Output at Uzbekistan’s sugar factories fell from 332,600 tonnes in the first half of 2023 to 227,800 tonnes in the same period of 2024 and to 165,500 tonnes in the first half of 2025, according to the National Statistics Committee. The combined design capacity of the two operating plants exceeds 900,000 tonnes a year, and both rely heavily on imported raw material.
Perhaps the most pointed complaint in UzBev’s submission concerns access to the decree itself. Resolution No. 417 carries a “for official use only” classification and has not been published on Lex.uz, Uzbekistan’s national legislation database. Musina argued that companies cannot adjust production plans or investment decisions on the basis of a regulation they are not permitted to read, and called on the Ministry of Justice to clarify on what grounds access has been restricted, whether unpublished regulations can lawfully be enforced against businesses, and how the two resolutions relate to each other.
The association invoked President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s repeated calls for shaffoflik — openness, transparency and accountability — arguing that closed decrees affecting entire economic sectors contradict that stated principle. “The principle the president calls for must underpin every state decision, especially when it affects business, investment, jobs and the welfare of citizens,” Musina said.
UzBev is demanding publication of Resolution No. 417, an open consultation involving business, independent experts and government bodies, an economic impact assessment and a legal review of the quota’s WTO compatibility. The question of whether food manufacturers will be able to import white sugar above the 300,000-tonne ceiling — and on what terms — remains unanswered. No official public clarification has been issued.