An analyst of the “Finam” group Alexey Korenev believes that Uzbekistan is still a rather closed country, even by the standards of many other Central Asian republics, inbusiness.kz quotes Korenev as saying.

In his opinion, this is why there is not so much information about its financial system. It itself is very poorly developed and has a number of structural distortions.

“86% of the country's banking sector belongs to the state. Banks themselves do not perform the classic functions of credit institutions, but act as a kind of treasury for various ministries and departments, which they lend to. In fact, these are simply large captive banks that provide loans and provide other types of services only to enterprises of a particular department to which they are “attached”. At the same time, all these credit institutions are under strict regulatory influence from the state and receive appropriate subsidies from it,” the analyst explained.

Nevertheless, from time to time some credit institutions from the republics of the former USSR and far-abroad countries make attempts to enter the banking market of Uzbekistan. The Georgian TBC Bank, as well as the western Sturgeon Capital and the large Swiss investor Respons Ability are among them.

The expansion of such large Russian players as Sberbank or VTB to the market of Uzbekistan is considered unlikely by Korneev. In his opinion, the authorities of the republic openly fear such powerful players and are in no hurry to admit them to their financial system.

“Prospects for development of the financial sector of Uzbekistan are rather vague in the coming years. A variety of scenarios are possible here, but the likelihood that it will quickly become open, diversified, oriented to the mass retail consumer and accessible to foreign investors is relatively small,” Alexey Korenev said.

According to another expert Rasul Rysmambetov, Uzbekistan as a country market is not a competitor to Kazakhstan because of the different structure of the economy.

“In general, I see Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan rather as complementary markets. And attracting investment to Uzbekistan will positively influence the investment climate in Kazakhstan and vice versa: many companies operating in Kazakhstan, both foreign and local, are extremely pleased with the positive changes in Uzbekistan. A rich neighbor is a pledge of our wealth,” the expert emphasized.

Earlier, it was reported that Uzbekistan had planned a banking reform to privatize several banks.