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Uzbekistan: An Economic Profile October 1993 Reverse Blank Uzbekistan: An Economic Profile Preface This is one in a series of profiles of the republics of the former Soviet Union that are intended to provide basic reference material as a backdrop for assessing future developments in these new states. This profile pro- vides a description of the geography, population, and economy of Uzbekistan and compares its level of development, growth, and social welfare with that of Turkey and Mexico. International comparisons, particularly for aggregate measures such as GNP, are difficult to make because of differences in definitions and methods used by various countries in compiling statistics. International currency exchange rates are deficient for this purpose because they do not reflect relative purchasing power of different currencies over the whole range of goods and services included in GNP. Because of the lack of these parities, alternative measures have been selected. These measures include data for which comparable international statistics were available. For the most part, official statistics in the public domain were used in compiling the tables and other numerical entries. The annual statistical abstracts from 1990 and 1991 for Uzbekistan, Narodnoye Khozyaystvo ~zbeksko~SSSR (National Economy of Uzbekistan SSR), was the most important source of data. Extensive use was also made of Trud v SSSR (Labor in the USSR) and the Perepis' Naseleniya, 1989 (Population Census). Reference country comparisons relied on the information found in those countries' yearbooks and in various UN and OECD publications covering national accounts, food consumption, and the like. More detailed data on the profile state are included in the appendix. Reverse Blank iii Contents Page ... Preface 111 Geography and Climate 1 History and Government 2 Population and Labor Force 3 Selected Demograehic Characteristics 3 Labor Force 5 Structure and Performance of the Economy 7 Aggregate Measures 7 Industry 8 Agriculture , 13 Investment 16 Economic Reform 17 Privatization 17 Inflation and Unemelovment Foreign Economic Relations 18 Living Standards and Social Indicators 19 Personal Income I 19 Food Consumption 20 Inventories of Selected Consumer Durables 20 Housing 2 1 Pensions, Health, and Welfare 22 Other Social Indicators 24 Pollution 24 Appendix Selected Economic Statistics 27 Less than 100,000 mil Uzbekistan: An Economic Profile Geography and Climate Uzbekistan lies almost entirely in the internal drainage basin of the Aral Sea. All 600 of Uzbekistan is a land of desert landscapes inter- Uzbekistan's streams and rivers originate in the spersed with fertile oases. It is located in the heart mountains and, as they move into drier lowlands, of Central Asia between the region's two major gradually lose their waters to irrigation, filtration, rivers: the Amu Darya to the southwest and the and evaporation. The Amu Darya, Central Asia's Sirdaryo (Syrdariya) to the northeast.' Uzbekistan's greatest river, runs along much of Uzbekistan's area of 447,400 square kilometers (1 72,700 square southwestern border with Turkmenistan. Its lower miles)-roughly the size of California-made it the reaches have been tapped so extensively for irriga- fifth-largest republic of the former Soviet Union. tion purposes, that today it barely reaches the Aral Uzbekistan is bounded on the north and northwest Sea. The Sirdaryo, Uzbekistan's second-largest by Kazakhstan; on the east and southeast by river, formed by the confluence of the Naryn and Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan; on the west and south- Kara-Dariya Rivers, supplies the Farghona Valley's west by Turkmenistan; and, for a short distance in extensive irrigation and canal system. Water tapped the south, by Afghanistan. Historically the home of here reduces much of the flow in neighboring the region's dominant people (Uzbeks), Uzbekistan Kazakhstan and ultimately deprives the Aral Sea. today remains the most populous and most eco- nomically important of the Central Asian republics. Because Uzbekistan is located far from the im- The ancient cities of Bukhoro (Bukhara), Khiva, mediate influence of an ocean, it has a climate that and Samarqand (Samarkand) (the capital of is very dry and continental in character. In the Tamerlane's empire) are all located in Uzbekistan. winter, relatively temperate airmasses of Atlantic origin arrive, heated and dried out from their long Nearly four-fifths of Uzbek territory is flat, journey inland. In summer, warm, dry tropical air- monotonous desert topography. The arid Ustyurt masses intrude, bringing only heat. The resulting Plateau is in the extreme west. It is a slightly un- arid climate is characterized by an average annual dulating plain that rises up to 200 meters above precipitation of only 200 millimeters (8 inches), sea level and features low ridges and internal most of which falls in winter and spring. A hot, drainage basins dotted with salt marshes, sinkholes, dry, cloudless summer lasts from May until and caverns along the courses of intermittent October. Mean July temperatures reach up to 32°C streams. Another geographical landmark, the vast (90F) in the south, and it is not unusual for day- Kyzylkum ("Red Sands" in Turkic) Desert, begins time highs to exceed 40DC (104uF). The winter is in the northwest and stretches southeast to the very short, with considerable cloud cover and oc- foothills of the Tien Shan. casional severe frosts. Mean January temperatures reach as low as -12°C (10F) in the north. Spurs of the western Tien Shan and Pamir-Alay mountain systems cover the eastern Uzbek protru- Soils reflect the characteristics of the various topo- sion. The fertile, alluvial basin of the Farghona graphic regions found within Uzbekistan. Gray (Fergana) Valley lies just north of the Alay Range. salty or alkaline desert soils predominate in the flat desert lands; a variety of brown and meadow soils in the foothills give way to more podzolized I Central Asia refers to the four republics of former Soviet (acidic) soils in the mountains; and meadow, bog, Central Asia-Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. marshy, and even saline soils are found in the river the eastern Farghona Valley. The border region of valleys. The soils, natural vegetative zones, and the western Farghona Valley, where the republics climate of Uzbekistan have their closest North of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan all American analogue in Arizona and New Mexico. merge, has a particularly heterogeneous ethnic mix. Furthermore, there exist two sovereign Uzbek en- claves, located south of Farghona, which are sur- History and Government rounded by Kyrgyz territory. Tajikistan's Leninabad Oblast also has a small exclave located Turkic tribes coming from the east first arrived in within the western portion of Uzbekistan's Uzbekistan in the fourth century A.D. Muslim Namangan Wiloyati (Oblast), in the northern Arabs then came to dominate the region from Farghona Valley. roughly 600 to 900 A.D. In the year 1220, all of Turkestan, including Uzbekistan, was overrun by Aside from contentious ethnic and land rights dis- the Mongols under Genghis Khan. In the 1300s, putes, there are several pressing regional issues in Uzbekistan, and the city of Samarqand in particu- Uzbekistan that could lead to further conflict. lar, became the center of the empire of Tamerlane Health and environmental concerns are perhaps the Great. Later, Muslim feudal city-states emerged chief among these. Heavy use of fertilizers and at Khiva, Bukhoro, and Quqon (Kokand). pesticides has polluted the water supply and made drinking and consumption of locally grown foods Although Russian trade with the oases of Central often unsafe. Cancer and mortality rates are partic- Asia developed in the 16th and 17th centuries, ularly high in the downstream drainage zone of the Russian military conquest came mainly after 1860. Amu Darya in Khorazm Wiloyati and the Complete incorporation of the region was not ef- Qoraqalpoghiston Respublikasi (Karakalpakstan). fected, however, until the consolidation of Soviet Infant mortality is rising throughout Uzbekistan, power in the early 1920s. The Uzbek Soviet and rural infant mortality, often associated with Socialist Republic was originally made a consti- poor water quality, was 25 percent higher than ur- tuent republic of the USSR in 1924. In 1925, its ban infant mortality. It should be noted that one of status was elevated to Union Republic, and, until the earliest opposition movements, the nationalist 1929, its boundaries included the Tajik Republic. Birlik, was based in part on environmental issues. Territorial expansion occurred in 1936 when the Karakalpak Autonomous SSR, located on the The move toward separation from the Soviet Union shores of the Aral Sea, was transferred from the came quickly as central control from Moscow neighboring republic of Kazakhstan. eroded. On 21 October 1989, Uzbekistan's parlia- ment approved a law that made the Uzbek lan- Uzbekistan included over half of the Soviet guage the official language of the republic. On 20 Union's 1989 population of Turks, most of whom June 1991, Uzbekistan issued a proclamation of were the so-called Meskhetian Turks. This group sovereignty. Just two months later (31 August was evicted from its Georgian homeland during 1991).