Uzbekistan attracts foreign investors thanks to extensive government reforms

International investment in Uzbekistan has increased tenfold in the last six years. Extensive government reforms which started in 2017 have opened up the economy and are attracting foreign capital to the Central Asian country and the number of investor taking notice is growing.

An American-Uzbek joint venture, Silverleafe, is growing cotton in the Jizzakh region, northeast of Samarkand. The whole process from seeding to harvest is 100 per cent automated.

This year Silverleafe is introducing new technology in Uzbekistan which will provide a digital footprint for tracking and tracing machine-harvested cotton, all the equipment was brought from the US.

“This is the GPS that’s keeping the tractor online, so we have the auto track, tied to the satellite system, and this is within one or two centimetres of accuracy,” said Dan Patterson, the General Director at Silverleafe International, pointing to a screen displaying how the machinery is monitored.

“These yellow domes on top are a very important part of precision agriculture and digital agriculture. We are able to gather information, verify our harvest information, and send that to a satellite, we can track and trace the field for cotton harvest” explained Patterson.

The director was invited to Uzbekistan in 2018 by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to modernise agriculture and take part in these reforms. In total Silverleafe invested approximately 40 million US dollars (€36.23 million) in Uzbekistan.

“People are looking to see if the reforms are real or if they are just speech, but I can tell you after being here for the last five years, the reforms are actually real. 

"They are creating the infrastructure and environment for foreign capital to come in and take advantage of the natural