APRIL 27 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Car production in Uzbekistan halved in 2016, state-owned Uzavtoprom said, highlighting the problems that one of the country’s most high- profile industries is facing.
Data on car production in Uzbekistan, an important employer around the city of Andijan in the Ferghana Valley, is tightly controlled and for the state’s main car producer to admit that there is a problem means that it is nervous about its future.
Last year the GM Uzbekistan joint venture with US’s GM which is based at the Andijan plant produced 88,200 cars out of total Uzbek car production of 92,625.
There was no comment on the press release, although it was widely cited across Uzbek media.
Last year was a decidedly tough year for the Uzbek car industry. It is reliant for much of its sales on Russia which has been dealing with a recession triggered by a fall in energy prices and by Western imposed sanctions. Sales figures repeatedly reported a drop in demand of around 37%.
GM Uzbekistan also had problems with its distributors in Uzbekistan, with the life.ru website reporting in May 2016 that it may be forced to stop exports to Russia altogether because of the bankruptcy of its partner in the Voronezh region.
Since then, GM Uzbekistan has said that it is starting to export cars to both Tajikistan and Belarus, an apparent attempt to reduce its over- reliance on Russia for its market.
And there was also a corruption scandal that enveloped its top management. This included Tokhirjon Jalilov, who was arrested and sacked as chairman of GM Uzbekistan after allegedly being involved in a scam to sell cars to neighbouring Kazakhstan to a proxy company and then re-importing them back to Uzbekistan where they were sold to consumers.
The accusation was that the company’s management pocketed the difference.
GM owns 25% of GM Uzbekistan and Uzavtoprom owns 75%.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)