BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 22
By Ilkin Seyfaddini - Trend:
Currently there are more than 130 businesses with a participation of German investors operate in Uzbekistan, including around 30 entities with fully German investment funds, press spokesman of German Association for Small and Medium-sized Businesses (BVMW), and editor-in-chief of DER Mittelstand business magazine Eberhard Vogt told Trend in an interview.
"In the past three years, decisive changes and policy of critical reforms as well as liberalization of the Uzbek economy under the leadership of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev have drawn attention of many foreign governments, international organizations as well as the foreign private sector to Uzbekistan as potentially interesting investment market in Central Asia," Vogt noted.
He said BVMW believes that new opportunities created recently in Uzbekistan will definitely play a mutually beneficial role for business communities of both countries to take advantage of.
But, as he said, still for many potential German investors seeking for new developing countries with favorable investment climate and high rates of return, Uzbekistan is out of consideration due to lack of sufficient information in German mass media and shortage of adequate instruments to deliver it.
"BVMW is planning to support existing German business in Uzbekistan as well as become a trustworthy bridge for new potential German investors planning to deploy operations in Uzbekistan. There is around 140 official Bilateral Agreements signed between Germany and Uzbekistan up-to-date that we are going to use to their maximum potential in supporting and stimulating successful operation of German businesses in Uzbekistan as well as help Uzbek companies establish good ties with German business community," Vogt noted.
As he said, German small and medium-sized enterprises are currently rather interested to start with trade in order to evaluate supply and demand in the market, before going with direct investments in to the country.
"Some larger family owned companies might invest already, but the opportunities are not very well explored yet by many companies as was mentioned earlier. BVMW supports SMEs now to get better informed and make their mind up, especially with the new representation office in Uzbekistan," stressed Vogt.
According to the results of the first half of 2020, Germany is among the leaders on attraction of investments in economy of Uzbekistan.
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