The Paris kidnapping: a banker seized in the 16th arrondissement
The facts of 23 June 2025, so far as they are publicly established through French and international reporting, are these. An Uzbek banker, 48 years old, checked into…
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The Ministry of Construction has corrected its own minister’s parliamentary testimony, saying Tashkent has 61 illegal apartment blocks, not 720-plus — but the revised total across all unauthorised structures is itself smaller than the original apartment-only figure, a discrepancy the ministry left unexplained.
President Mirziyoyev visited Sulton Tex Group’s new $54 million Kashkadarya factory on 21 October and ordered the National Bank to prepare financing to double the cluster’s capacity, as its founder pledged 30,000 new jobs by 2028 and $150 million in annual exports.
Uzbekistan’s Competition Committee is investigating claims that pharmaceutical importers and wholesale distributors are forcing pharmacies to buy unwanted medicines alongside high-demand drugs, a practice that may breach competition law and expose offenders to fines of up to five percent of relevant revenues.
Uzbek economists Otabek Bakirov and Murod Muhammadjonov have challenged four tax proposals—cashback abolition, expanded product marking, social-tax exemptions and a carbon levy—arguing each lacks the independent cost-benefit analysis needed to justify it.
Batyr Rakhimov, a businessman and former president of football club Pakhtakor, was unanimously elected chairman of the Uzbekistan Tennis Federation on 17 February 2025 at an extraordinary conference held at the National Olympic Committee, replacing Alisher Mirsоatov, who departed to lead the Association of Winter Sports.
The former head of Jambay District’s ecology department has been sentenced to five years in prison for accepting an 11-million-soum computer in exchange for shelving an illegal tree-felling case and releasing an impounded truck.
Cabinet Resolution No. 585, signed on 21 October 2026, sets out a graduated financial penalty system for firms that over-abstract water or operate without contracts and permits, effective from 2027.
Uzbekistan’s road inspectorate found 5,815 violations at construction, reconstruction and repair sites in the first nine months of 2026, issuing more than 2,100 mandatory orders and forwarding 452 administrative cases to courts, even as fines for non-compliance were cut sharply under new legislation.
Joint raids by five Uzbek agencies between 19–21 October uncovered more than 120 cases of illegal gas-cylinder hoarding and above-rate resale, with state utility workers implicated in 39 cases and over 3,000 cylinders seized as evidence.
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View allJoint raids by five Uzbek agencies between 19–21 October uncovered more than 120 cases of illegal gas-cylinder hoarding and above-rate resale, with state utility workers implicated in 39 cases and over 3,000 cylinders seized as evidence.
Amendments to 33 departmental instruments, registered by the Ministry of Justice on 20 October 2026, require banks, notaries, domestic airports and other bodies to accept digital versions of passports, ID cards, birth certificates and other key documents.
President Mirziyoyev has ordered officials to advance a package of infrastructure projects in Kashkadarya including a $350mn ADB-backed highway reconstruction and water supply schemes targeting 1.25 million residents.
A draft regulation published for public comment sets out the rules, principles and timelines for state accreditation of Uzbekistan’s educational institutions, with five-year cycles and the State Inspectorate for Education Quality Control as the governing authority.
Every political family has members it would rather not discuss. Very few have a member whose résumé includes the alleged financing of political assassinations abroad, laundering for security-service generals, a collapsed bank, a Paris kidnapping investigation, allegations of money laundering in Spain, a €10 million bribery scheme in Turkey, alleged…
Franklin Templeton’s Marius Dan says Uzbektelecom is the leading candidate for a 2027 listing as UzNIF maps out a pipeline of six portfolio IPOs, while shareholders face an 18-month wait for the fund’s first dividend payment.
President Mirziyoyev has announced a $350 million reconstruction of 100 kilometres of the A-380 highway in Qashqadaryo, backed by a proposed ADB loan, alongside major water supply investments for the region.
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More ⮞The facts of 23 June 2025, so far as they are publicly established through French and international reporting, are these. An Uzbek banker, 48 years old, checked into a hotel in Paris’s 16th arrondissement. He was, by the accounts that followed, a significant figure: the manager of an investment portfolio…
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has announced 12 localization projects worth $850 million targeting energy storage control modules, wind turbine components and high-voltage equipment, alongside a new specialized industrial zone in the Farish district of Jizzakh to supply the country’s planned nuclear power plant.
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has announced the preparation of 128 new oil and gas investment blocks carrying estimated reserves of 5.8 trillion cubic metres of gas and 560 million tonnes of liquid hydrocarbons, while setting a deadline of end-2027 for transferring the country’s entire propane supply network to private operators.
Average monthly electricity consumption per household fell from 212 kWh in 2023 to 184 kWh in 2025, while gas use dropped from 431 to 342 cubic metres, as tiered tariffs replaced a subsidy system that officials say had channelled most state support to high-income consumers.
Deputy Prime Minister Jamshid Khojayev and Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov led talks in Fergana that produced plans for 17 joint industrial projects worth $350 million, a major Wildberries logistics complex near Tashkent, and a bilateral science and technology strategy stretching to 2040.
A third of the country’s teachers have been rated unsatisfactory in their own subjects, base salaries remain well below a presidential pledge, and documented incidents of officials publicly humiliating educators have accelerated a flight from the profession that is hollowing out public schooling.
Aksa Enerji’s chairman announced plans to sign grid management agreements for three additional regions within a week, following a meeting with President Mirziyoyev on October 16. The move extends a public-private partnership model first applied in Samarkand, where the Turkish firm committed to investing $1 billion over 30 years.
Safia, one of Uzbekistan’s largest confectionery chains, plans to grow its Kazakhstan network from 11 to 25 branches by the end of this year, with each new location requiring between $100,000 and $150,000 in capital. Shymkent operations are already profitable; Almaty is expected to reach break-even before year-end.
Founded in Uzbekistan in 2015, Bellissimo Pizza has moved from 100 domestic locations to an 11-branch footprint in Kazakhstan within a single year, acquiring the assets of a local Papa John’s franchisee and targeting 200 restaurants across the country by 2030.
Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Agriculture has proposed banning apple imports until February 2027 and potato imports until March 2027, a move that would close a key seasonal market for Uzbek agricultural exporters at the height of the harvest period.
A protocol from an extraordinary general meeting of UzPost shareholders has confirmed that the national postal operator’s 92.9% state stake was transferred to a Wildberries subsidiary under trust management — a fact the head of the State Assets Management Agency publicly denied as recently as October 8.
A Visa survey of 249 Uzbek small and medium businesses finds digital payment adoption is now widespread, but only 37% of firms have integrated those payments with broader operational tools — a gap that costs businesses time and limits their access to tailored financial services.
Average monthly electricity consumption per household fell from 212 kWh in 2023 to 184 kWh in 2025, while gas use dropped from 431 to 342 cubic metres over the same period, the Ministry of Economy and Finance reported on October 14.