Uzbekistan grows by 8.7 percent in the first quarter

Uzbekistan's economy grew strongly in the first quarter. According to preliminary data from the National Statistics Committee, gross domestic product rose by 8.7 percent year-on-year. Growth was broad-based, but was mainly driven by services and the construction industry. GDP reached 447.9 trillion soums, the equivalent of around 37.23 billion US dollars. In the same period of the previous year, it was 372.8 trillion soums. By comparison, it was 276.9 trillion sum in the first quarter of 2024 and 228.9 trillion sum in the first quarter of 2023. Inflationary pressure remained noticeable in the first three months. The GDP deflator rose by 10.6% year-on-year. Price increases were particularly pronounced in industry at 15.8% and in agriculture at 13.2%. Price pressure in the construction, transportation and ICT sectors remained more moderate at 4.7% and 4.8% respectively. Services remain the most important sector The services sector remained the largest part of the economy, even though its share of gross value added fell slightly from 57.6 to 56.2 percent. Nevertheless, the sector's economic output rose by 8.8 percent to 240.1 trillion soums. Within the service sector, growth developed differently. Trade increased by 19.4 percent. Information and communication services grew by 18.3% and transportation and storage services by 12.3%. In contrast, other services expanded at a much slower rate of 4.4%. Industry strengthened its position. Its share of GDP rose from 27.8 to 29.2 percent. Production increased by 8.0 percent to 124.9 trillion soums. Growth was driven primarily by the manufacturing sector, which increased by 9.1 percent. Agriculture, forestry and fishing grew by 5.1 percent. Their share of the overall economy fell slightly to 8.4%. Construction industry grows particularly strongly The construction industry was the fastest growing major sector. It expanded by 15.0% year-on-year to 26.4 trillion soums. Building construction developed particularly strongly with an increase of 16.3 percent. Civil engineering grew by 10.1 percent and special construction work by 14.0 percent. The contribution of the construction sector to overall GDP growth was 0.9 percentage points. Despite the strong overall growth, real GDP per capita rose by only 6.7 percent and reached 11.7 million soums, equivalent to around 973 US dollars. This shows that population growth continues to dampen per capita growth. Small businesses accounted for 45.6 percent of total value added and generated 194.8 trillion soums. Their role is particularly strong in agriculture, where they account for 94.6 percent of production, and in construction with 77.0 percent. In industry, on the other hand, their share is only 21.8 percent. The share of the shadow economy in GDP fell from 24.8 percent in the previous year to 22.9 percent. In absolute terms, it amounted to 102.7 trillion soums. Of this, 15.4 percent of GDP was attributable to the activities of private households and 7.5 percent to the shadow economy in the narrower sense. The data indicate a gradual structural change. Services continue to dominate, but industry and construction are gaining in importance. At the same time, the strong growth in trade and digital services underlines the growing importance of consumption and technology. ICT services already account for 3.2 percent of GDP, up from 3.0 percent in 2025 and 2.6 percent in 2024. The post Uzbekistan grows by 8.7 percent in the first quarter appeared first on ostwirtschaft.de.