Assistant of director of IMF Middle East and Central Asia Department Ms. Taline Koranchelian led the mission. David Owen, deputy director of IMF Middle East and Central Asia Department joined to discussions on economic policies.

During the discussions, the main attention was paid to anti-crisis measures of economic policies, adopted during global crisis, economic results of 2009, perspectives of economic development in 2010 and mid-term perspective, as well as issues of economic policies, which are actual for Uzbekistan, the statement said.

Uzbekistan remains resilient to the global economic crisis mainly thanks to prudent economic policies of the official bodies, which ensured significant budget surplus and allowed them to save significant resources to support the growth during this period.

The mission congratulated the Uzbek authorities for timely and effective response to crisis and underlined that the anti-crisis programme of the authorities, including decreasing tax burden, had decisive importance for limiting impact of global crisis to banking sector, supporting positive current account balance, and preserving high growth rates in 2009.

Prudent approach to borrowing from global financial markets also limited impact of global crisis to the country. According to estimates, the real GDP growth made up 8.1% in 2009, which is one of the highest figures in the world, while the average inflation rate made insignificant growth.

Thanks to ongoing impact of anti-crisis measures, the programme of the authorities on industry modernization and infrastructure development and improvement of foreign economic trends, the growth of real GDP is expected in good level – 8%.

The Uzbek authorities and the mission agreed that the main task in short-term perspective is to prevent formation of inflation pressure with help of prudent macroeconomic policies in the future.

The mission fully agreed with the authorities that the task of Uzbekistan in mid-term perspective is further increasing real income of population per capita and creating workplaces to youth and growing man power.

In this context, programme of the authorities on industry modernization soundly focuses on infrastructure development, which lays foundation for expansion of investments inflow to Uzbekistan. For last four years, the financial sector developed significantly, while significant growth of capital and assets of the bank contributed to banking sector stability and allowed to ensure support to the state programme on industry modernization and infrastructure development, the statement said.

The mission shared its recommendation in order to ensure implementation of economic advantages of the state programme in full volume. These recommendations included: continuation of firm monetary-credit policy, more flexible currency policy, further reforms, especially currency system, tax administration and development of financial sector, as well as significant improvement of quality and distribution of data. The officials will consider these recommendations carefully at forming and conducting economic policies, the mission said.

The mission drew attention of the authorities that IMF personnel stand ready to assist Uzbekistan in work over reforms, including in technical assistance.

(Note: This is informal translation of the statement.)