Uzbekistan increases trade with China and Russia, decreases with neighbors in 2023

In 2023, after two years, China surpassed Russia as Uzbekistan’s main trading partner, as revealed by data from the Statistics Agency under the President of Uzbekistan analyzed by Gazeta.uz.

The trade turnover with China experienced a 1.5-fold increase from $9.06 billion to $13.7 billion. Although the volume of Uzbek exports to the Chinese market saw a 6.4% decrease to $2.46 billion, imports from China surged by 1.7 times, reaching $11.26 billion.

Russia slid to the second position among trading partners, with trade registering a growth of 5.3% (compared to 22.9% in 2022), from $9.38 billion to $9.88 billion. Exports to Russia recorded a 5% increase (compared to 46.8% in the previous year), totaling $3.3 billion, while imports saw a 5.55 increase (compared to 13.7% in 2022), reaching $6.58 billion.

Top 10 countries with the highest trade turnover with Uzbekistan (2023, %)

In 2023, Uzbekistan experienced a decline in trade turnover with Kazakhstan for the first time since the pandemic year of 2020. The overall trade decreased by 5.4%, dropping from $4.6 billion to $4.4 billion. Both imports ($3.03 billion) and exports ($1.37 billion) witnessed a decrease, falling short of the planned target of $5 billion by 2020. Earlier this year Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan were reported to have set up a working group aiming to remove trade barriers.

Similarly, trade with another neighbor, Kyrgyzstan, also faced challenges, registering a decline of 24.5% to $953.4 million by the end of the last year, which is even lower than in 2021. This decline moved Kyrgyzstan from the 6th to the 9th place among the main trading partners. The decrease was primarily driven by a significant drop in Uzbekistan’s exports (-35.7%) amounting to $631.5 million, while imports from Kyrgyzstan saw an increase (+14.6%) reaching $321.9 million. The countries aimed to achieve a trade indicator of $2 billion in 2022.

Trade with Turkey continued to decline for the second consecutive year with a reduction of 8.34% in 2023 (-0.8% in 2022), totalling $3.1 billion. Despite a drop in exports (-24%), imports of Turkish goods increased (+6%), possibly influenced by the devaluation of the lira, which makes Turkish goods more affordable.

Trade turnover with South Korea remained relatively stable at $2.34 billion (+0.03%).

Share of six major partner countries in exports of goods and services

Turkmenistan moved up to the sixth place among trade partners, surpassing Germany (-9.9%, $1.05 billion) and Kyrgyzstan. Trade turnover with Turkmenistan increased by 17.8% to $1.09 billion. Despite a decrease in exports of goods from Uzbekistan to $171.2 million, imports, primarily consisting of gas, surged to $923.2 million.

France, which ranked 20th in the list of major trading partners at the end of 2022, rose up to the 8th place. It experienced a nearly threefold increase in trade turnover from $344.3 million to $984.7 million. This growth was attributed to increased supplies of uranium and aircraft, including passenger airplanes.

The dependence of Uzbekistan on trade with Russia and China has grown. Their combined share in the trade turnover increased from 36.4% to 37.7% (with China accounting for almost 22%). The share of these countries in imports went up from 41.1% to 46.8%, while in exports, it decreased from 29.3% to 23.6%. Thus, Uzbekistan is importing more Russian and Chinese goods and supplying less of domestic goods to these markets. Additionally, 88% of the foreign trade deficit, equivalent to $12.1 billion out of $13.7 billion, was attributed to the trade with China and Russia.

This dependence could increase in 2024 given the contract on the supply of Russian gas to Uzbekistan and energy projects with Chinese companies, as well as imports of public transportation and other machinery.

As trade with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan declined, the proportion of Central Asian countries in trade dropped from 14.8% ($7.5 billion) to 11.5% ($7.2 billion). This percentage could have been even lower if not for the positive trade dynamics with Turkmenistan and Tajikistan.

Trade with Afghanistan saw a 13.2% increase, reaching $867 million.

Share of six major partner countries in imports of goods and services

Uzbekistan is gradually diversifying its trade relations, expanding ties with European countries such as Lithuania (+22.5%), Italy (30.3%), Poland (13.9%), as well as with the UAE (20.7%), Brazil (18.4%), Iran (15.4%) and Belarus (14.7%). Consequently, the share of other countries in exports increased from 44.5% to 57.1%, while in imports, it remained unchanged at 29.4%.

Although Russia remains the main export market for fruit and vegetable products, its share decreased from 42.5% to 37%. Despite the increase in the volume of supplies (from 541.9 thousand to 611.4 thousand tons), export revenues fell from $486.7 million to $437.4 million.

Pakistan emerged as the second market for fruits and vegetable exports, with its share growing from 8.8% to 16.7%. Export earnings increased from $101.2 million to $197.6 million.

Exports to China also witnessed a growth to 185.1 thousand tons worth $144.9 million (+45.5% and +38.5%, respectively). Meanwhile, exports to Kazakhstan decreased by 1.3 times, reaching 486.3 thousand tons worth $121.2 million, causing the share to fall from 16.7% to 10.3%.

Imports of manufactured goods increased by 10% and reached $6.32 billion, constituting 16.6% of the total volume of imports (compared to 18.8%). The majority of the industrial goods are imported from Russia amounting to $2.17 billion with a share of 34.3% (compared to $2.44 billion, 42.3%), China — $1.95 billion with a share of 30.9% ($1.26 billion, 21.9%) and Kazakhstan — $715.2 million with a share of 11.3% ($721.5 million, 12.5%).

Gazeta.uz has previously covered Uzbekistan’s trade items in 2023.