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President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has ordered that requirements to use domestically produced goods be extended to all investment projects worth more than ten million dollars that receive tax concessions, other state privileges or subsidised state resources. The directive, issued on 9 November, broadens obligations that until now applied mainly to energy projects built under public-private partnership arrangements.
Under current rules, PPP energy projects must source at least 25 percent of their inputs from Uzbek manufacturers, with a higher threshold of 70 percent applying specifically to cable products. Mirziyoyev instructed that equivalent local-content floors be applied across the wider universe of large, state-supported investment projects — a move that would bring a far larger share of capital spending under domestic-procurement discipline.
A Separate Procurement Lane for Energy Contractors
The same meeting surfaced a specific complaint from makers of substations, transformers, electrical cabinets and high-voltage cables. These companies typically offer both equipment supply and installation as a combined service, yet when they bid through the state’s Shaffof Qurilish (Transparent Construction) procurement platform they are assessed against the same criteria used for conventional building contractors — criteria designed for firms that erect structures rather than commission electrical systems.
Mirziyoyev acknowledged that the existing rules fail to account for the technical character of energy infrastructure and create unnecessary barriers for specialist contractors. He gave officials one month to establish a dedicated section within Shaffof Qurilish for energy projects, with eligibility and qualification requirements rewritten to reflect the realities of electrical equipment installation rather than general construction.
The changes are expected to make it easier for domestic manufacturers to compete for contracts that currently tend to favour firms whose profiles match the platform’s building-sector templates, allowing Uzbek producers to supply equipment and carry out installation work on the same project without navigating requirements calibrated for an unrelated industry.
The announcements follow the earlier establishment of the Agency for Industrial Cooperation and State Procurement, which was created to coordinate exactly this kind of alignment between procurement rules and industrial policy.