The volume of industrial production in Uzbekistan grew by 12% in the first quarter of 2007, the Uzbek State Statistics Committee said on Tuesday, 8 May 2007.

The main factor of this growth was increase of internal demand due to modernization of production, reduction of tax burden, strengthening financial condition of enterprises, increase of their circulating assets and real income of the population. This entailed increase of enterprises’ demand for investment goods, and the population’s demand for domestically manufactured products, first of all, automobiles and household equipment, the committee said in its material published by central Uzbek newspapers.

The highest growth rates were fixed in mechanical engineering and metal processing, chemical and petrochemical industries, production of building materials, light and other branches of the national industry.

Production of car petrol rose by 8.7% in the reporting period, diesel fuel – by 3.5%, cars – 29.2%, TV sets – 25.3%, natural tea – 1.5 times due to increase of supply and processing of domestic and import raw materials and components. The privileges provided to companies allowed to increase the production of medicines 1.7 times, light industry products (without cotton cleaning) by 17.3%.

Production of consumer goods grew by 20.7%. Significant growth was observed in the volume of production of refrigerators (+33.1%), soft drinks (1.85 times), fruit juices (1.84 times), fruit and vegetable canned food (2.4 times), bread and bakery products (+23.3%), carpets (1.31 times), knitwear (1.4 times), porcelain and earthenware products (1.32 times), etc.

The volume of production within the framework of Localization Programme made up 478.3 billion soums in the first quarter of 2007, or up by 21.3% to the forecast. Products worth 433.4 billion soums, including exports for US$149.7 million, have been sold within 230 projects implemented at 148 enterprises. Moreover, 447 new workplaces have been created.