On January 2nd, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev held a government meeting on attracting investments and developing green energy in 2024, at which it was stated that last year Uzbekistan attracted more than $22 billion in foreign investment, a 1.8-fold increase on the previous year.
Mirziyoyev emphasized the importance of increasing the volume of foreign investment this year, with upmost attention to be paid to electrical and mechanical engineering, construction materials, pharmaceuticals, and the textile and leather industries.
The meeting also discussed the development of green energy, with officials reporting that work is ongoing on 28 projects based on public-private partnerships for the construction of solar, wind, and hybrid power plants with a total capacity of 6.3 gigawatts. Of these, the first, with generating capacities of 2.6 gigawatts, were launched in 2023.
Currently, work is underway on the construction of green power plants and energy storage systems together with companies from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, China, France, and Switzerland.
In 2024, Uzbekistan plans to increase the total capacity of solar power plants to 2.6 gigawatts, wind farms to 900 megawatts, and launch energy storage devices with a capacity of 400 megawatts.
At the meeting, instructions were relayed to study the possibility of introducing, based on international experience, agrovoltaics – the practice of agricultural producers installing solar panels on their fields to produce energy for their own needs or for sale, and for specific proposals to be drawn up for this area.
