Cabinet of Ministers of Uzbekistan held the session on 21 January 2011 to discuss social-economic development in 2010 and important priorities of economic programme in 2011.

Speaking at the session, the Uzbek leader Islam Karimov underlined structural improvement in economy of Uzbekistan. He said that Uzbekistan paid strategic importance to this issue as it get rid of Soviet heritage such as one-sided economy directed to only production of raw cotton, primitive production, etc.

He said: “To show ongoing changes in economy, I want to give some figures. Share of industry in GDP of Uzbekistan rose from 14.2% in 2000 to 24% in 2010, share of transport and communication rose from 7.7% to 12.4% respectively, share of services increased from 37% to 49%. Share of agriculture sector decreased from 30.1% to 17.5%.”

At the same time, the Uzbek leader said that the decrease of agriculture sector in GDP took place in context of growth of agriculture production, which increased by 6.8% compared to 2009 and 1.8 times compared to 2000.

Uzbek President Islam Karimov also attracted attention to conducted works on diversification of production in the country. He said that share of ready products with high value added cost in industrial output reached over 50%.

Uzbekistan realized 1,076 projects within localization programme in 2010, while the volume of localized goods production increased 1.4 times and estimated import-replacing effect made up US$3.4 billion, which is 1.2 times up year-on-year.