Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Recently, mass media disseminated publications regarding the introduction of restrictions on currency conversion on import operations.

As you know, since September 2017, all business entities have been granted the right to freely purchase foreign currency in the domestic foreign exchange market for current international operations without any restrictions.

In a statement, the Central Bank of Uzbekistan said that since the introduction of free conversion practice, the volume of foreign exchange transactions for the purchase and sale of foreign currency has grown several times.

The average monthly volume of transactions for the sale of foreign currency to business entities in January-September of this year increased almost 3 times compared to 2017, and the purchase of foreign currency more than 2 times.

The number of business entities that acquired foreign currency in August of the current year amounted to 7.6 thousand compared to 4.1 thousand in 2018 and 340 in 2017.

At the same time, along with liberalization and transparency of the economy, appropriate measures are being taken to increase the efficiency of economic entities with state participation and the rational use of state resources in favor of supporting the development of domestic production.

However, in practice, within the framework of public procurement, there are cases of using state resources for the import of goods, the production of which (both in quality and price) is established in the country, their prices are too high, as well as without proper marketing research, the import is unusual and not required for activities of products, which in consequence leads to the outflow and freezing of public funds.

At the same time, in order to avoid the above cases, the Government, within the framework of public procurement, investment and other programs, takes measures regarding the examination of import contracts of individual state-owned companies with attention to the conformity of prices reflected in production and investment projects, as well as the availability of goods with similar quality and price in the domestic market.

On the practical side, these measures, being part of the reform and increase of the efficiency of state-owned companies, provide a clearer picture of the state of affairs in their management, improve the information and analytical base necessary to improve decision-making processes, as well as approaches to developing programs to increase their competitiveness .

Also, these measures are aimed at improving the transparency and efficiency of state-owned companies with a reorientation of their production purchases based on competitive prices of domestic and foreign markets.

The measures taken should in no way be considered as restrictive measures in the field of monetary policy, since they are taken exclusively in relation to public procurement, investment and other programs of socio-economic development, as well as enterprises with state property, and thus, are one of the mechanisms contributing to supporting the development of the domestic economy and the balance of its individual segments.

International experience shows that many countries that have successfully liberalized the economy have applied various mechanisms of the temporary nature of “manual control” to prevent the possible negative consequences of reforms, especially in the initial stages, thus preserving the fundamental foundations for further promotion of structural transformations of a liberal nature.

The experience of other countries that began structural reforms, but were forced to curtail these reforms, shows that the failure of liberalization of the economy was largely due to carelessness on the part of state policy due to the failure to take certain preventive measures of a temporary nature, as many participants in the financial and economic processes especially state-owned enterprises were not ready and it took some time their adaptation to new conditions of a market economy.

At the same time, the regulator informed that all commercial banks sell foreign currency to business entities for the import of goods (services) in a regular mode without any restrictions.