A national conference entitled "The formation of the foundation of civil society is the priority task of national development: essential tasks of the media" took place on 25 September in Tashkent, the UzA news agency reports.

The forum was organized by the public foundation for supporting and developing independent print media and news agencies and the national association of electronic media with the assistance of the parliamentary committee on information and communications technologies, and journalists’ creative union. Members of the Legislative Chamber [the parliament’s lower house], representatives from ministries, state and public organizations, central and regional print and electronic media took part in the conference.

There are over 1,000 newspapers and magazines, government and non-governmental TV and radio stations and Internet sources in Uzbekistan. Special attention is being focused on creating non-governmental sources of media. The necessary legal basis, economic and legal guarantees aimed at raising the efficiency of their work have been set up.