EBRD prepares to restart its work in Uzbekistan

THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will this week signal it’s ready to restart work in Uzbekistan after a decade-long absence, sources at the bank said.

The return is expected to get the green light at a board meeting today and follows the death last year of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, whose authoritarian leadership and poor human rights record effectively pushed the EBRD out of Central Asia’s most populous nation.

Karimov has been succeeded by his former prime minister, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, and the EBRD’s return will encourage reformists in his new leadership looking to modernise the country’s $70 billion (R910bn) a year economy. Rapprochement with the EBRD had faced resistance from the country’s powerful state security chief, diplomatic sources said.

Command style The Uzbek economy is still run largely in the Soviet command style and the EBRD could help in areas from energy efficiency to banking and business support.

The EBRD board of directors will discuss Uzbekistan today, according to an EBRD source, who requested anonymity. The source said the decision was expected to get the go-ahead, adding: “It is going to happen.”

“It would be a good signal,” a second EBRD source said, confirming that the bank was likely to signal its return to Uzbekistan. “It is a big country and this is the kind of thing the bank is mandated to do.”

On the bank’s absence from Uzbekistan during the last decade, she said conditions in the country “were such that there were few opportunities for the EBRD to operate”.

If the return gets approval as expected, EBRD president Suma Chakrabarti is set to travel to Uzbekistan later this month in what would be another symbolic step. – Reuters