BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 11. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) predicts that Uzbekistan's gold reserves will continue to rise, boosting the country's total foreign reserves to $36 billion in both 2024 and 2025, Trend reports.
According to the outlook, these reserves are expected to be enough to cover 11 months of imports in 2024 and 10 months in 2025.
To manage the country's debt, authorities have set a limit of $5 billion on external borrowing for 2024, the ADB noted. This measure aims to keep the total public debt below 60 percent of GDP for both 2024 and 2025. Currently, external public debt stands at below 38 percent of GDP and is forecasted to remain around 37 percent in 2024 and 2025, the bank analysts say.
Additionally, with investments in sectors like petrochemicals, mining, and quarrying, foreign direct investment (FDI) is expected to grow by 10 percent each year, the ADB forecasts.
Meanwhile, the ADB forecasts Uzbekistan's GDP growth to decrease to 5.5 percent in 2024. However, there's a small improvement expected in 2025, with GDP growth rising slightly to 5.6 percent.