Uzbeklegprom plans to raise $154 million in foreign investments in 2002
Posted 03/11/2002 Tashkent. (Interfax)
The Uzbeklegprom association, which comprises leading Uzbek light industrial enterprises, plans to raise $154.28 million in foreign investments in 2002, to implement 11 projects. Direct foreign investments and loans will amount to $95.78 million, and loans under government guarantees will reach $58.5 million, Alexei Dogonkin, the head of the Uzbeklegprom foreign economic and investments department, told Interfax. Financing has already been opened on three projects, in particular, the Uzbek-German Khiva Carpet joint venture in the Khorezm region, and two textile joint ventures - the Uzbek-German UniKho in the Khorezm region and the Uzbek-Swiss Alattex in the Bukhara region, he said. Financing on four more projects should be opened in the first quarter of this year. Feasibility studies on these projects have already been submitted for examination to Uzbek banks, Dogonkin said. Ten out of the eleven investment projects deal with cotton fiber processing and the production of cotton yarn and cloth, he said. As was reported earlier, Uzbekistan intends to invest $1.27 billion in cotton fiber processing in the period up to 2005. It is expected that the export potential of the textile industry will grow to $500 million in 2005, against $98 million in 1999. In 1995-2001, $562.61 million in foreign investments were raised in the textile sector of Uzbeklegprom, of which $308.5 million (54.8%) were direct foreign investments. Enterprises included in the association absorbed $166.05 million in foreign investments in 2001, against $63.5 million in 2000. Uzbekistan is the fifth largest world producer and second largest exporter of cotton fiber. The country annually harvests an average of 3.5 million to 3.7 million tonnes of raw cotton and produces 1 million to 1.2 million tonnes of cotton fiber.
