Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) — President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev has instructed that the first concrete be poured in March 2026 for the construction of a nuclear power plant in Jizzakh region. The announcement was made in an interview with the Oʻzbekiston 24 TV channel by Azim Akhmedkhadjayev, Director of the Atomic Energy Agency (“Uzatom”).

According to him, during a recent meeting dedicated to the capital’s energy supply issues, the head of state paid special attention to the progress of the nuclear power plant project. Mirziyoyev emphasized that the pouring of the first concrete will mark the start of the active construction phase, when work will proceed in full scale.

Akhmedkhadjayev stated that this year will see the completion of documentation required for assessing the project’s environmental impact and ensuring its safety, which will make it possible to move to the next stage. He noted that the president instructed not to delay the process but instead to accelerate all timelines.

“The head of state ordered that the first concrete pouring begin in March 2026,” Akhmedkhadjayev stressed, explaining that this stage signifies the transition to the active construction phase, when work will be carried out in full scope.

According to the Uzatom chief, the president sets high requirements for the project team both in terms of deadlines and quality. As a result, detailed progress reports and updates on achieved results are presented to the head of state every two weeks.

Under the contract signed on 27 May 2024, in Tashkent, the country’s first small-scale nuclear power plant will be built in Jizzakh district. It will include six reactors, each with a capacity of 55 MW.

The general contractor has been designated as JSC Atomstroyexport (the engineering division of Rosatom), with local companies also involved in the work. In June 2025, Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development announced that the presidents of Uzbekistan and Russia had agreed to modernize the project, expanding it to include a large two-unit nuclear power plant and a two-unit small-scale plant.