EBRD Provides €38.4 Million for Digital Transformation of Uzbekistan Railways

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will provide a loan of up to €38.4 million to O’zbekiston temir yo’llari (UTY), the country’s national railway operator, to digitalize transport management and improve cybersecurity. According to the EBRD, UTY owns and operates a 6,950-kilometer railway network and is responsible for up to 40% of freight transported in Uzbekistan. Some dispatching and scheduling work remains manual, as do parts of operational control. The financing will allow UTY to introduce modern digital traffic and transportation management systems and upgrade cybersecurity protections for its IT infrastructure. The EBRD said the changes should improve the safety and reliability of railway operations while allowing UTY to manage train movements and network capacity more efficiently and reduce costs. The planned cybersecurity measures will be aligned with international best practices. The Bank also links the project to the development of the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor, also known as the Middle Corridor, which connects Central Asia with the South Caucasus and onward to Europe. Landlocked Uzbekistan connects to the corridor through neighboring countries before cargo crosses the Caspian Sea. The project is the EBRD’s first public-sector initiative of this kind in Uzbekistan and is specifically focused on the digital transformation of the national railway operator. As previously reported by The Times of Central Asia, the EBRD has also provided a loan of up to €20 million to Uzbek pharmaceutical manufacturers Samarkand England Eco-Medical and Bayan Medical to expand production. To date, the EBRD has invested almost $6.9 billion (€6 billion) in Uzbekistan through 210 projects, with most of the funds supporting private entrepreneurship. Uzbekistan has been the largest recipient of EBRD funding in Central Asia for each of the past six years.