Abstract
2019 Article IV Consultation-Press Release and Staff Report
Fund Relations
(As of March 31, 2018)
I. Membership Status
Date of membership: September 21, 1992
Status: Article VIII
II. General Resources Account
| SDR Million | Percent Quota | |
|---|---|---|
| Quota | 551.20 | 100.00 |
| IMF Holdings of Currency | 551.20 | 100.00 |
| Reserve Tranche Position | 0.01 | 0.00 |
| SDR Million | Percent Quota | |
|---|---|---|
| Quota | 551.20 | 100.00 |
| IMF Holdings of Currency | 551.20 | 100.00 |
| Reserve Tranche Position | 0.01 | 0.00 |
III. SDR Department
| SDR Million | Percent Quota | |
|---|---|---|
| Net Cumulative Allocation | 262.79 | 100.00 |
| Holdings | 266.11 | 101.26 |
| SDR Million | Percent Quota | |
|---|---|---|
| Net Cumulative Allocation | 262.79 | 100.00 |
| Holdings | 266.11 | 101.26 |
IV. Outstanding Purchases and Loans: None
V. Latest Financial Arrangements
| Type | Stand-By |
|---|---|
| Approval Date | December 18, 1995 |
| Expiration Date | March 17, 1997 |
| Amount Approved (SDR Million) | 124.70 |
| Amount Drawn (SDR Million) | 65.45 |
| Type | Stand-By |
|---|---|
| Approval Date | December 18, 1995 |
| Expiration Date | March 17, 1997 |
| Amount Approved (SDR Million) | 124.70 |
| Amount Drawn (SDR Million) | 65.45 |
VI. Projected Obligations to the Fund: None
VII. Implementation of HIPC Initiative: Not Applicable
VIII. Implementation of Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI): Not Applicable
IX. Implementation of the Catastrophe Containment and Relief (CCR): Not Applicable
Exchange Rate Arrangements
Uzbekistan accepted the obligations of Article VIII Sections 2(a), 3, and 4 of the Fund’s Articles of Agreement with effect on October 15, 2003 and maintains an exchange system free of restrictions on the making of payments and transfers for current international transactions.
With the exchange rate unification in September 2017, as well as the adoption and implementation of regulations liberalizing the FX regime in Uzbekistan, two exchange restrictions and one an MCP maintained inconsistently with Article VIII were eliminated. Since then, Uzbekistan maintains an exchange system free from restrictions on the making of payments and transfers for current international transactions. FX is generally freely available for payments and transfers for current international transactions without undue delay.
According to the authorities, the de jure exchange rate arrangement is floating. The exchange rate is determined daily based on the supply and demand for foreign currency established on Uzbekistan’s currency exchange. The Central Bank of Uzbekistan (CBU) is a direct buyer of monetary gold produced in Uzbekistan, acting as a supplier in the foreign exchange market in amounts equivalent to the volume of gold purchased from producers. The CBU also intervenes in the foreign exchange market to smooth out undue short-term volatility. Foreign exchange sales by the CBU in the FX market are not directed at affecting the fundamental trend of the exchange rate and are driven exclusively by the aim of sterilizing additional liquidity from CBU purchases of monetary gold.
Since May 2018, the exchange rate has increased its volatility, but there is still intervention to smooth short-term volatility. Therefore, the de facto exchange rate arrangement was reclassified to “other managed” from “stabilized”, effective May 8, 2018.
Article IV Consultation
The Republic of Uzbekistan is on the standard 12-month Article IV consultation cycle. The previous Article IV consultation was concluded on May 9, 2018.
Safeguards Assessment
The CBU is currently not subject to safeguards assessment policy since Uzbekistan is not expected to have a financial arrangement with the Fund in the near future.
Resident Representative
Currently, the Fund does not have a resident representative in Uzbekistan but maintains a locally staffed office. A resident representative office was previously open in Tashkent from September 1993 to April 2011.
Technical Assistance
(April 23, 2018 to April 16, 2019)
| IMF Department | Type of Technical Assistance | Mission Date |
|---|---|---|
| Statistics | Enhanced General Data Dissemination System | Apr 2018 |
| Statistics | Government Financial Statistics | May 2018 |
| Statistics | National Accounts Statistics | May 2018 |
| Fiscal Affairs | Fiscal Transparency Evaluation | Jun 2018 |
| Fiscal Affairs | Tax Administration Modernization | Jul 2018 |
| Statistics | Monetary and Financial Statistics | Sep 2018 |
| Statistics | External Sector Statistics | Oct 2018 |
| Fiscal Affairs | Tax Policy and Administration Reform | Oct 2018 |
| Fiscal Affairs, Statistics | Improving Fiscal Reporting and Fiscal Transparency | Nov 2018 |
| Monetary and Capital Markets | Stress Testing | Nov 2018 |
| Fiscal Affairs | Tax Administration Reform | Dec 2018 |
| Fiscal Affairs | Tax Administration Reform | Feb 2019 |
| Monetary and Capital Markets | Monetary and Foreign Exchange Operations | Feb 2019 |
| Fiscal Affairs | Strengthening the Tax Policy Unit | Mar 2019 |
| Statistics | National Accounts | Mar 2019 |
| Fiscal Affairs | Improving Fiscal Reporting and Fiscal Transparency | Apr 2018 |
| Statistics | Government Financial Statistics | Apr 2019 |
| Monetary and Capital Markets, World Bank | Medium-Term Debt Management Strategy | Apr 2019 |
| IMF Department | Type of Technical Assistance | Mission Date |
|---|---|---|
| Statistics | Enhanced General Data Dissemination System | Apr 2018 |
| Statistics | Government Financial Statistics | May 2018 |
| Statistics | National Accounts Statistics | May 2018 |
| Fiscal Affairs | Fiscal Transparency Evaluation | Jun 2018 |
| Fiscal Affairs | Tax Administration Modernization | Jul 2018 |
| Statistics | Monetary and Financial Statistics | Sep 2018 |
| Statistics | External Sector Statistics | Oct 2018 |
| Fiscal Affairs | Tax Policy and Administration Reform | Oct 2018 |
| Fiscal Affairs, Statistics | Improving Fiscal Reporting and Fiscal Transparency | Nov 2018 |
| Monetary and Capital Markets | Stress Testing | Nov 2018 |
| Fiscal Affairs | Tax Administration Reform | Dec 2018 |
| Fiscal Affairs | Tax Administration Reform | Feb 2019 |
| Monetary and Capital Markets | Monetary and Foreign Exchange Operations | Feb 2019 |
| Fiscal Affairs | Strengthening the Tax Policy Unit | Mar 2019 |
| Statistics | National Accounts | Mar 2019 |
| Fiscal Affairs | Improving Fiscal Reporting and Fiscal Transparency | Apr 2018 |
| Statistics | Government Financial Statistics | Apr 2019 |
| Monetary and Capital Markets, World Bank | Medium-Term Debt Management Strategy | Apr 2019 |
Relations with Other International Institutions
(As of March 31, 2019)
Asian Development Bank:
Country page: https://www.adb.org/countries/uzbekistan/main
ADB project operations: https://www.adb.org/projects/country/uzb
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development:
Country page: https://www.ebrd.com/uzbekistan.html
EBRD’s lending portfolio: https://www.ebrd.com/work-with-us/project-finance/project-summary-documents.html?c37=on&keywordSearch=
World Bank Group:
Country page: https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/uzbekistan
Overview of Word Bank Group lending: http://financesapp.worldbank.org/en/countries/Uzbekistan/
IBRD-IDA project operations: http://projects.worldbank.org/search?lang=en&searchTerm=&countrycode_exact=UZ
Statistical Issues
(As of March 31, 2019)
| I. Assessment of Data Adequacy for Surveillance | |
| General: Data have shortcomings that significantly hamper surveillance. Shortcomings are most serious in national accounts, external sector, government finance, and labor statistics. | |
| National Account: The nominal level of annual GDP is significantly underestimated due to large unmeasured areas of the non-observed economy. The recent TA mission in March 2019 recommended that special surveys on measuring the non-observed economy be conducted in services such as: construction, trade, hotels and restaurants, education, healthcare, and other personal services. Appropriate procedures need to be developed for reconciling production and expenditure-based estimates of GDP. Discrete quarterly GDP estimates are not compiled. However, the authorities implemented the recommendation of the April 2018 TA mission and improved the survey questionnaires. The collection of discrete source data will start from the 2019 Q1. | |
| Price Statistics: In January 2018, the authorities introduced an updated CPI methodology. However, there may be scope to introduce further enhancements. The authorities plan to expand the coverage of the producer price index to include agriculture. | |
| Government Finance Statistics: Detailed data on revenue and expenditure of the consolidated government budget are compiled by the ministry of finance on a monthly basis and are available after about four weeks. A non-negligible proportion of spending by budgetary institutions, comprising essentially their own source revenue, are made off-budget, and not shown in GFS reports. Data for extrabudgetary funds are available quarterly, and include only broad categories of revenue and expenditure of the four largest funds, that is, pension, road, education, and employment. The authorities occasionally provide fiscal tables that include net lending, foreign-financed investment, and details on the financing of the deficit. A persisting statistical discrepancy between the financing of the budget based on the above-the-line and below-the-line data points to coverage and classification issues. The authorities do not reconcile the monetary and fiscal financing data on a regular basis. The authorities follow their own classification to present expenditure data in the budget. GFS data are made available on functional and economic classification basis, but the quality of the economic classification is inadequate. The ministry of finance occasionally provides data on tax arrears. Information on total proceeds from privatization operations and treasury bills are provided on a quarterly basis, and data on issues and repayments of treasury bills are available monthly on request. Finally, public debt statistics by term maturity are not published. The authorities have strong commitment to address the fiscal statistics limitations. The authorities started reporting GFSM2001-compliant fiscal data in 2013 and publishing fiscal data in the GFS Yearbook in 2014. They are also working intensively to implement the recommendations of the FTE and follow up missions, as well as they have approved a road map to improve the quality of fiscal reporting. | |
| Monetary and Financial Statistics: Following the introduction of new charts of accounts for the CBU and for the commercial banks in 1997, several missions have assisted the CBU in compiling monetary. The CBU has started preliminary work on the publication of MFS in the Enhanced General Data Dissemination System, as well as on the introduction of a country page in International Financial Statistics (IFS). Currently CBU publishes regularly information on their website and an MFS mission is planned in FY20 to support the CBU’s ongoing efforts to compile MFS for publication in IFS. Nevertheless, longer timer series are needed, and institutional classification of credit should follow closely international standards (disaggregating publicly owned nonfinancial corporations, private owned nonfinancial corporations). Uzbekistan also reports data on some basic series and indicators of Financial Access Survey (FAS), including two indicators of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. Financial Soundness Indicators: The CBU reports the 11 core financial soundness indicators (FSIs) and one of the 13 encouraged FSIs for deposit takers on a quarterly basis for posting on the IMF’s FSI website with a lag of one month. | |
| External Sector Statistics: The CBU started the publication of balance of payments (BOP) and international investment position in 2018. Previously BOP and international reserves data were compiled but not published. Before 2018, only limited data on external trade were published. Currently comprehensive reports are published by CBU and SSC, but there is need to improve data quality and the back-casting of statistical series is pending. Limited time series are obstacles for surveillance. There is a need to continue building up the CBU’s capacity to compile external sector statistics. Largest data gaps pending are in the remittance’s components, in the financial accounts of BOP, and in external debt stocks. | |
| Other Statistics: Labor statistics have sizable limitations. Labor statistics (job vacancies, labor, cost and hours worked) definitions need to follow more closely international standards. Quality of employment data in household-surveys and enterprises-survey needs to improve. Currently, statistics are produced by the ministry of labor, instead of the statistics office. | |
| II. Data Standards and Quality | |
| Uzbekistan joined the Enhanced General Data Dissemination System (e-GDDS) in May 2018, and regularly updates the National Summary Data Page (NSDP) on the website of the State Statistics Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan, utilizing the Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange (SDMX) as the language for data exchange. | No data ROSC is available. |
| I. Assessment of Data Adequacy for Surveillance | |
| General: Data have shortcomings that significantly hamper surveillance. Shortcomings are most serious in national accounts, external sector, government finance, and labor statistics. | |
| National Account: The nominal level of annual GDP is significantly underestimated due to large unmeasured areas of the non-observed economy. The recent TA mission in March 2019 recommended that special surveys on measuring the non-observed economy be conducted in services such as: construction, trade, hotels and restaurants, education, healthcare, and other personal services. Appropriate procedures need to be developed for reconciling production and expenditure-based estimates of GDP. Discrete quarterly GDP estimates are not compiled. However, the authorities implemented the recommendation of the April 2018 TA mission and improved the survey questionnaires. The collection of discrete source data will start from the 2019 Q1. | |
| Price Statistics: In January 2018, the authorities introduced an updated CPI methodology. However, there may be scope to introduce further enhancements. The authorities plan to expand the coverage of the producer price index to include agriculture. | |
| Government Finance Statistics: Detailed data on revenue and expenditure of the consolidated government budget are compiled by the ministry of finance on a monthly basis and are available after about four weeks. A non-negligible proportion of spending by budgetary institutions, comprising essentially their own source revenue, are made off-budget, and not shown in GFS reports. Data for extrabudgetary funds are available quarterly, and include only broad categories of revenue and expenditure of the four largest funds, that is, pension, road, education, and employment. The authorities occasionally provide fiscal tables that include net lending, foreign-financed investment, and details on the financing of the deficit. A persisting statistical discrepancy between the financing of the budget based on the above-the-line and below-the-line data points to coverage and classification issues. The authorities do not reconcile the monetary and fiscal financing data on a regular basis. The authorities follow their own classification to present expenditure data in the budget. GFS data are made available on functional and economic classification basis, but the quality of the economic classification is inadequate. The ministry of finance occasionally provides data on tax arrears. Information on total proceeds from privatization operations and treasury bills are provided on a quarterly basis, and data on issues and repayments of treasury bills are available monthly on request. Finally, public debt statistics by term maturity are not published. The authorities have strong commitment to address the fiscal statistics limitations. The authorities started reporting GFSM2001-compliant fiscal data in 2013 and publishing fiscal data in the GFS Yearbook in 2014. They are also working intensively to implement the recommendations of the FTE and follow up missions, as well as they have approved a road map to improve the quality of fiscal reporting. | |
| Monetary and Financial Statistics: Following the introduction of new charts of accounts for the CBU and for the commercial banks in 1997, several missions have assisted the CBU in compiling monetary. The CBU has started preliminary work on the publication of MFS in the Enhanced General Data Dissemination System, as well as on the introduction of a country page in International Financial Statistics (IFS). Currently CBU publishes regularly information on their website and an MFS mission is planned in FY20 to support the CBU’s ongoing efforts to compile MFS for publication in IFS. Nevertheless, longer timer series are needed, and institutional classification of credit should follow closely international standards (disaggregating publicly owned nonfinancial corporations, private owned nonfinancial corporations). Uzbekistan also reports data on some basic series and indicators of Financial Access Survey (FAS), including two indicators of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. Financial Soundness Indicators: The CBU reports the 11 core financial soundness indicators (FSIs) and one of the 13 encouraged FSIs for deposit takers on a quarterly basis for posting on the IMF’s FSI website with a lag of one month. | |
| External Sector Statistics: The CBU started the publication of balance of payments (BOP) and international investment position in 2018. Previously BOP and international reserves data were compiled but not published. Before 2018, only limited data on external trade were published. Currently comprehensive reports are published by CBU and SSC, but there is need to improve data quality and the back-casting of statistical series is pending. Limited time series are obstacles for surveillance. There is a need to continue building up the CBU’s capacity to compile external sector statistics. Largest data gaps pending are in the remittance’s components, in the financial accounts of BOP, and in external debt stocks. | |
| Other Statistics: Labor statistics have sizable limitations. Labor statistics (job vacancies, labor, cost and hours worked) definitions need to follow more closely international standards. Quality of employment data in household-surveys and enterprises-survey needs to improve. Currently, statistics are produced by the ministry of labor, instead of the statistics office. | |
| II. Data Standards and Quality | |
| Uzbekistan joined the Enhanced General Data Dissemination System (e-GDDS) in May 2018, and regularly updates the National Summary Data Page (NSDP) on the website of the State Statistics Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan, utilizing the Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange (SDMX) as the language for data exchange. | No data ROSC is available. |
Table of Common Indicators Required for Surveillance
(As of March 31, 2019)
The date for the latest observation and the date received reflect when data was transmitted to the area department.
Daily (D); Weekly (W); Monthly (M); Quarterly (Q); Annually (A); Irregular (I); Not Available (NA).
Any reserve assets that are pledged or otherwise encumbered should be specified separately. Also, data should comprise short-term liabilities linked to a foreign currency but settled by other means as well as the notional values of financial derivatives to pay and to receive foreign currency, including those linked to a foreign currency but settled by other means.
Foreign & domestic bank and domestic nonbank financing.
Both market-based and officially-determined, including discount rates, money market rates, rates on treasury bills, notes and bonds.
The general government consists of the central government (budgetary funds, extra budgetary funds, and social security funds) and state and local governments.
Currency and maturity composition are not reported regularly.
Table of Common Indicators Required for Surveillance
(As of March 31, 2019)
| Date of Latest Observation | Date Received 1 | Frequency of Data 2 | Frequency of Reporting | Frequency of Publication | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exchange Rates | Mar 28, 2019 | Mar 31, 2019 | D | W | W |
| International Reserve Assets and Reserve Liabilities of the Monetary Authorities 3 | Feb 2019 | Mar 2019 | M | M | M |
| Reserve/Base Money | Feb 2019 | Mar 2019 | M | M | M |
| Broad Money | Feb 2019 | Mar 2019 | M | M | M |
| Central Bank Balance Sheet | Feb 2019 | Mar 2019 | M | M | M |
| Consolidated Balance Sheet of the Banking System 4 | Feb 2019 | Mar 2019 | M | M | M |
| Interest Rates 5 | Feb 2019 | Mar 2019 | M | M | |
| Consumer Price Index | Feb 2019 | Mar 2019 | M | M | M |
| Revenue, Expenditure, Balance, and Composition of Financing—General Government 6 | 2018 Q3 | Mar 2019 | Q | Q | Q |
| Stocks of Central Government and Central Government Guaranteed Debt7 | 2018 Q4 | Mar 2019 | Q | Q | NA |
| External Current Account Balance | 2018 Q4 | Mar 2019 | Q | Q | Q |
| Exports and Imports of Goods and Services | Feb 2019 | Mar 2019 | M | M | M |
| GDP | 2018 Q4 | Mar 2019 | Q | Q | Q |
| Gross External Debt | 2018 Q4 | Mar 2019 | Q | Q | Q |
| International Investment Position | 2018 Q4 | Mar 2019 | Q | Q | Q |
The date for the latest observation and the date received reflect when data was transmitted to the area department.
Daily (D); Weekly (W); Monthly (M); Quarterly (Q); Annually (A); Irregular (I); Not Available (NA).
Any reserve assets that are pledged or otherwise encumbered should be specified separately. Also, data should comprise short-term liabilities linked to a foreign currency but settled by other means as well as the notional values of financial derivatives to pay and to receive foreign currency, including those linked to a foreign currency but settled by other means.
Foreign & domestic bank and domestic nonbank financing.
Both market-based and officially-determined, including discount rates, money market rates, rates on treasury bills, notes and bonds.
The general government consists of the central government (budgetary funds, extra budgetary funds, and social security funds) and state and local governments.
Currency and maturity composition are not reported regularly.
Table of Common Indicators Required for Surveillance
(As of March 31, 2019)
| Date of Latest Observation | Date Received 1 | Frequency of Data 2 | Frequency of Reporting | Frequency of Publication | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exchange Rates | Mar 28, 2019 | Mar 31, 2019 | D | W | W |
| International Reserve Assets and Reserve Liabilities of the Monetary Authorities 3 | Feb 2019 | Mar 2019 | M | M | M |
| Reserve/Base Money | Feb 2019 | Mar 2019 | M | M | M |
| Broad Money | Feb 2019 | Mar 2019 | M | M | M |
| Central Bank Balance Sheet | Feb 2019 | Mar 2019 | M | M | M |
| Consolidated Balance Sheet of the Banking System 4 | Feb 2019 | Mar 2019 | M | M | M |
| Interest Rates 5 | Feb 2019 | Mar 2019 | M | M | |
| Consumer Price Index | Feb 2019 | Mar 2019 | M | M | M |
| Revenue, Expenditure, Balance, and Composition of Financing—General Government 6 | 2018 Q3 | Mar 2019 | Q | Q | Q |
| Stocks of Central Government and Central Government Guaranteed Debt7 | 2018 Q4 | Mar 2019 | Q | Q | NA |
| External Current Account Balance | 2018 Q4 | Mar 2019 | Q | Q | Q |
| Exports and Imports of Goods and Services | Feb 2019 | Mar 2019 | M | M | M |
| GDP | 2018 Q4 | Mar 2019 | Q | Q | Q |
| Gross External Debt | 2018 Q4 | Mar 2019 | Q | Q | Q |
| International Investment Position | 2018 Q4 | Mar 2019 | Q | Q | Q |
The date for the latest observation and the date received reflect when data was transmitted to the area department.
Daily (D); Weekly (W); Monthly (M); Quarterly (Q); Annually (A); Irregular (I); Not Available (NA).
Any reserve assets that are pledged or otherwise encumbered should be specified separately. Also, data should comprise short-term liabilities linked to a foreign currency but settled by other means as well as the notional values of financial derivatives to pay and to receive foreign currency, including those linked to a foreign currency but settled by other means.
Foreign & domestic bank and domestic nonbank financing.
Both market-based and officially-determined, including discount rates, money market rates, rates on treasury bills, notes and bonds.
The general government consists of the central government (budgetary funds, extra budgetary funds, and social security funds) and state and local governments.
Currency and maturity composition are not reported regularly.