AmCham's Monthly Meeting on July 18th included two presentations. The first was a personal macro economic overview by out­going World Bank Representative Martin Raiser, who presented an encouraging picture of the Uzbek economy with GDP growth running at close to 8%, export values on the rise, foreign exchange reserves at a recent high, and new investment commitments from Russia, China and Korea.

The second presenter was Ulugbek Tilyayev of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) who presented the results of the IFC’s annual survey of small and medium-sized businesses. Again the results were reasonably encouraging with entrepreneurs and business people showing a renewed interest in making capital commitments by investing in machinery and equipment. The entire survey is available in electronic format and those interested in receiving a copy should contact the IFC offices.

Both presenters took questions from the floor and there were a number of discussions on related matters.