THE NEXT THREE YEARS MAPPED

 

The Memorandum of Understanding signed in Samarkand on 4 May 2026 between the Government of Uzbekistan and the Asian Development Bank sets out the most detailed forward programme in the thirty-year history of the partnership. Twenty-eight projects, totalling US$ 4.2 billion, will be delivered between 2026 and 2028. The pipeline spans mortgage market deepening, youth and women entrepreneurship financing, poverty reduction reform, inclusive education, the modernisation of state-owned banks, digital innovation across public services, and additional sovereign budget support. The Country Partnership Strategy for 2024 to 2028 now has a fully operational delivery roadmap.

 

Beyond 2028, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev used the Samarkand stage to propose an Expanded Strategic Partnership Programme covering 2027 to 2030. The proposal extends the institutional architecture of the current partnership into a longer-cycle commitment, aligning ADB's investment horizon with the full duration of the Uzbekistan-2030 national strategy. Multi-year visibility reduces the cost of capital, sharpens project preparation, and gives counterpart ministries a planning window long enough to design and deliver structural reform. The credibility behind the forward programme rests on a track record that the Independent Evaluation Department has rated successful or highly successful in 80 percent of completed projects assessed over the past decade. ADB is already the country's second-largest development partner. The Expanded Programme would lock that position in through the end of the decade.

 

WHAT IS COMING NEXT

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The forward pipeline runs in parallel with an active portfolio of US$ 4.23 billion in execution at the end of 2025, comprising 28 ongoing loans alongside a grant and two sovereign guarantees. The largest tranche is sovereign and budget support: US$ 3.3 billion of the US$ 12.4 billion partnership programme through 2030 is earmarked for budget support for reforms, with a further US$ 2.2 billion for results-based lending and US$ 2 billion for direct private sector financing.

 

A further US$ 1.7 billion is committed to public-private partnerships, building on the model ADB deployed in the preschool sector, where the bank was appointed transaction advisor in 2024 to deliver up to 500 new preschools. Comparable PPP structures are being prepared across urban water supply, district heating, secondary education, healthcare facilities, and renewable energy. Each combines public-sector planning with private capital and ADB transaction advisory work that makes deals bankable. Several flagship initiatives sit in the immediate pipeline.

 

The Combating Illicit Finance and Strengthening Asset Recovery project, approved in February 2026, supports the State Asset Management Agency in tracing, freezing, and recovering the proceeds of corruption, building institutional capacity that underpins investor confidence. The Mortgage Market Sector Development Program is transforming the government's housing finance approach into a market-based system delivering affordable long-term loans to low and middle-income households, with explicit consideration for home ownership by women.

 

The Economic Management Improvement Program, approved in 2025 at US$ 500 million, advances fiscal transparency, state-owned enterprise governance, and Uzbekistan's accession to the World Trade Organization. Each works on the institutional plumbing that determines whether headline investment numbers translate into outcomes.

 

THE MACROECONOMIC FOUNDATION

 

The forward investment programme rests on macroeconomic foundations that strengthened in 2025. According to ADB's Asian Development Outlook published in April 2026, the Uzbek economy expanded by 7.7 percent in 2025. Growth is projected at 6.7 percent in 2026 and 6.8 percent in 2027, with first-quarter 2026 data showing 8.7 percent annual expansion. Exports, tourism receipts, and remittances have all increased. International reserves remain ample, giving the government fiscal space to absorb the ADB pipeline.

 

The principal policy challenge identified by ADO April 2026 is acceleration. State-owned enterprise reform, WTO accession, and the wider transformation of the financial sector all require sustained political commitment. Each of the 28 projects in the 2026 to 2028 MoU carries policy conditionality to lock in reform progress.

 

Uzbekistan's outlook does not end at its borders. ADB regional initiatives announced in Samarkand bring the country into infrastructure architecture being built across the next decade. The bank has committed more than US$ 10 billion through 2030 to the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation programme. The Pan-Asia Power Grid Initiative will draw cross-border investment toward Central Asian renewable generation and transmission. The Critical Minerals-to-Manufacturing Financing Partnership Facility names Uzbekistan among its earliest opportunity markets. The Asia-Pacific Digital Highway will reach Central Asia through Uzbek fibre and data.

 

In May 2027, ADB's 60th Annual Meeting takes place in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan. Uzbekistan will hand over the chairmanship of the Board of Governors held through the 2025 to 2026 cycle. Deputy Prime Minister Jamshid Khodjaev has indicated the country will use its convening position to drive Central Asian cooperation forward.

 

THE 2028 HORIZON

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Looking out to 2028, several measurable outcomes will define whether the strategy has worked. The first is the delivery of the 28 MoU projects on schedule and within budget. The second is progress against the Uzbekistan-2030 macroeconomic targets: upper middle-income status, GDP above US$ 240 billion, and the structural rebalancing that takes the country from gas dependence to renewable leadership and from a state-dominated economy to one anchored on private capital.

 

The third is the operationalisation of the regional architecture: physical rail crossings open, power flowing across borders, fibre carrying data and customs information, critical minerals moving up the value chain. The fourth is the institutional one: whether ADB's Uzbekistan Resident Mission has continued to deepen its delivery capacity in line with the bank-wide decentralisation programme that brings sector expertise closer to government counterparts.

 

Several additional milestones will mark the cycle. WTO accession is on the agenda for 2027 with ADB technical assistance behind the negotiations. The Tashkent International Financial Center, slated to launch by early 2027, is forecast to add roughly one percent to annual GDP and create approximately 15,000 high-skilled jobs by 2030, with ADB advising on its capital markets architecture. The first sovereign sustainability-linked bond issuance is in preparation, building on the success of the June 2025 sum-denominated debt programme. And the next Country Partnership Strategy, due for preparation in 2027 and 2028, will set the framework for the partnership beyond 2030.

 

The numbers attached to the 2026 to 2030 cycle, taken together, are larger than anything in the partnership's previous three decades. US$ 14.7 billion already committed across 277 public sector operations since 1995. US$ 15.5 billion already committed since 1995 across 267 sovereign operations and 15 non-sovereign projects. US$ 12.4 billion in new partnership financing through 2030. US$ 4.2 billion in 28 specific projects through 2028. A US$ 27.9 billion total cooperation portfolio. The 28th of those projects will close out a strategy cycle that began with the signing of the Country Partnership Strategy in August 2024.

 

By the time the 2027 to 2030 Expanded Strategic Partnership Programme reaches its midpoint in 2028, Uzbekistan will be inside the final two years of the Uzbekistan-2030 strategy, with the targets that define upper middle-income status finally within reach. The capital is in place. The architecture is in place. The next three years are about execution.