President: This year, 120 trillion soums will be allocated to small and medium-sized businesses

In today's meeting, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev proposed new initiatives for the sector. In particular, a large program has been developed in collaboration with foreign experts to promote the development of small and medium-sized businesses. A total of 10 billion dollars will be allocated from all sources in 2025.

“This year, 120 trillion soums will be allocated to small and medium-sized businesses. Such a large amount has never been allocated before,” said the head of state.

Specifically, 22 trillion soums will be allocated as preferential resources to engage the population in entrepreneurship. Of this, 2.5 trillion soums will be directed to youth, and the same amount will be allocated for women's entrepreneurship projects.

The interest rate for women entrepreneurs will be 2 percent lower than for others.

“We should express our gratitude to our women who are making people employed and profitable through entrepreneurship beyond household chores and child-rearing,” said the President.

This year, loans of up to 300 million soums have started to be provided to small businesses. Now, entrepreneurs who have grown into small or medium-sized enterprises within a year will be granted 150 million soums without collateral. Similarly, loans of up to 50 million soums will also be provided without collateral for family entrepreneurship.

Officials have been instructed to create opportunities for entrepreneurs without overdue debts on their previous loans to obtain new preferential loans.

The expected results from the above initiatives, that is, the main goals and tasks for the sector for 2025, were emphasized as follows:

• to increase the share of small and medium-sized businesses in the economy to 55 percent, creating 70 billion dollars in added value;
• to assist in entering new markets by addressing transport, certification, and standard issues, increasing small business exports from last year's 9 billion to 12 billion dollars;
• to increase the share of small businesses in drinking water, sewage, roads, construction, utilities, supply, recycling, migration, culture, and social services by 2-3 times;
• to create 1.5 million permanent jobs, raising the share of employed population in the sector to 75 percent;
• to increase the number of enterprises with more than 100 employees to 4,000;
• to establish the production of 100 new branded products in small business;
• to finance 200 startup projects with the participation of small businesses.