The value of Uzbekistan's natural resources: $79 thousand per citizen

Recently, a ranking was announced based on the value of natural resources per capita in countries around the world. This was reported by Zamin.uz.

Saudi Arabia took first place in this ranking. In this country, the value of underground resources per citizen is approximately 1 million dollars.

Canada and Australia took second and third places respectively, where this indicator exceeds 700 thousand dollars. Canada's high result is due to its wealth in oil, forests, and mineral resources, while Australia ranks high because of its reserves of iron ore, coal, and natural gas.

Russia is in fourth place, where the value of natural resources per citizen is 520 thousand dollars. What about Uzbekistan?

According to official data, our country has great potential in underground resources. According to the State Committee on Geology and Mineral Resources, in 2018, the value of Uzbekistan's mineral raw material resources was estimated at 5.7 trillion dollars.

Of this, 1 trillion dollars corresponds to discovered deposits. However, only 20 percent of the country's territory has been fully explored, which indicates that there are still significant opportunities to discover new deposits.

In December 2023, Ilyos Jumayev, a representative of the Ministry of Mining Industry and Geology, announced that Uzbekistan has 101 gold and 3 silver deposits. Additionally, our country has many minerals of strategic importance such as copper, uranium, oil, natural gas, lithium, and tungsten.

In particular, gold deposits form the raw material base of the Navoi and Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Complexes. Copper deposits are mainly located in the Tashkent region.

At the Tashkent International Investment Forum held in 2025, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev estimated the total value of Uzbekistan's underground resources at 3 trillion dollars. The head of state emphasized that demand for technological minerals is increasing and that Uzbekistan has all the opportunities to become a center for the production of high value-added products.

Considering the current population exceeding 38 million, approximately 78–79 thousand dollars worth of natural resources corresponds to each Uzbek citizen. Although this figure is lower compared to Saudi Arabia or Canada, the vast unexplored reserves in our country suggest that this value may increase in the future.

Source: one.uz