BAKU, Azerbaijan, Apr. 14
By Ilkin Seyfaddini – Trend:
According to preliminary data from the State Statistics Committee of Uzbekistan, Uzbekistan's GDP grew by 4.1 percent in the first quarter of 2020, compared to the same indicator in 2019, and amounted to 110.5 trillion soum ($ 11.4 billion), Trend reports citing Uzbek media.
Industrial production grew by four percent, reaching 82.2 trillion soums ($8.5 billion).
Production of consumer goods grew by 11.2 percent, reaching 22.9 trillion soums ($2.3 billion). Production of agricultural, forestry and fishery products increased by 3.9 percent, reaching 25.2 trillion soums ($2.6 billion).
Investments in fixed capital decreased by 10.5 percent.
The volume of construction work increased by 6.5 percent. Retail trade turnover increased by 3.8 percent, services provided by 9.9 percent.
The foreign trade turnover amounted to $8.1 billion. Of that amount, $3.37 billion accounted for exports, $4.76 billion -imports. The volume of trade turnover has decreased by 10.2 percent. Exports decreased by 10.9 percent, imports - by 9.7 percent.
The majority of 1Q2020 of Uzbekistan's economy was not affected by the restrictive measures in connection with coronavirus pandemic, which stipulated rather positive indicators of the first quarter on most positions.
Nevertheless, the measures taken by other countries to combat the pandemic have already had a rather negative impact on the results of foreign economic activity, since restrictive measures were applied by other countries much earlier.
The World Bank forecasts that economic growth in Uzbekistan will slow to 1.6 percent in 2020. The Asian Development Bank is more optimistic and believes that the economy will grow to 4.7 percent. Fitch predicts it will be two percent.
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