ANALYSIS: Uzbekistan is turning workers, fields and data into growth
ANALYSIS: Uzbekistan is turning workers, fields and data into growth
Three Uzbek stories in one day add up to a single strategy. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev wants annual remittances raised to 50 billion dollars, from more than 20 billion today. Cotton farmers passed 5 million tonnes with yields up sharply. And the government is writing the rules for civilian drones across farming, industry and transport.
The thread is productivity. Remittances are the income of Uzbeks working abroad, and formalising that flow would bring more of it through banks and into investment at home. Cotton shows what higher yields do: the same fields now produce far more, and farmers are expected to keep 13 to 14 trillion som in profit. Drones are the tool that links the two, mapping fields, spraying crops and inspecting infrastructure with fewer hands.
The constraints are just as clear. A 50 billion dollar remittance target is more than double today's level, and it depends on jobs abroad, on migrants trusting formal channels, and on the state actually delivering the support Mirziyoyev says has been missing. Cotton's profit story also depends on water, prices and export routes. And drone rules only help if local makers and farmers can afford the machines and the permits.
What makes this more than a list of announcements is the sequencing. GDP per capita rose 6.4 percent in real terms in the first nine months of 2026, so the economy is already growing. The question is whether the next stage of growth comes from more workers abroad, more output at home, or both, and who captures the gain.
What to watch: the Astana visit on November 5 to 6 and the Aqaba Process meeting on artificial intelligence security, where Mirziyoyev will test this agenda with Central Asian neighbours; any concrete remittance support package, not just a target; and whether drone rules arrive with financing for farmers, or only with paperwork.
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