BAKU, Azerbaijan, Nov. 4
By Fakhri Vakilov - Trend:
Uzbekistan’s Cabinet of Ministers approved a program to accelerate the development of the electrical industry for 2019-2022, Trend reports citing Ministry of Justice’s press service.
This program provides for measures aimed at increasing the volume of production of electrical products and household electrical products, exports and processing volumes of copper raw materials in the electrical industry.
In addition, the resolution approved targets envisaging an increase in the manufacture of these products by 2.7 times, exports - by 4.3 times and copper processing - by 5 times.
At the end of 2018, electrical industry accounted for 1.2 percent of GDP or 1.9 percent of industrial production. The industry operates 454 manufacturing enterprises for the manufacture of 2,000 types of products worth $815.4 million. The total number of employees in the industry is about 20,000.
The products of the electrical industry are in significant demand in the domestic market, and are also exported, mainly to the markets of the CIS countries and neighboring countries - in 2018, electrical and household appliances worth $116.5 million were exported. Moreover, imports amounted to $254 million, of which components, raw materials and materials - $208 million.
The level of capacity utilization in the electrical industry is: televisions - 61 percent, refrigerators and freezers - 77.5 percent, air conditioners - 70 percent, transformers - 80 percent, power cables - 85 percent.
Uzbekistan’s Uzeltekhsanoat Association consists of 45 enterprises, which is less than 10 percent of the total number of enterprises in the industry. The Association enterprises produce 57 percent of the total industry output.
The level of processing of copper raw materials remains at a low level - at the end of 2018, only 14 percent of copper raw materials or 16,000 tons were processed, whereas 114,000 tons were extracted. In addition, the share of value added in products produced from copper raw materials is on average 15 percent ($ 900) per 1 ton.
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