On Thursday, May 16, the cost of gold bars and commemorative coins reached a new record high, as reported by the Central Bank of Uzbekistan.

A 5-gram gold bar is now valued at 5.04 million UZS, with the price per gram rising to 1,008,040 UZS — a 1.8% increase compared to the previous day.

Just under a month prior, on April 17, the price of one gram of the precious metal had already crossed the 1 million UZS mark. Since the start of the year, gold prices in Uzbekistan have climbed by 18.9%.

The Central Bank started selling gold coins to the public in 2018, and two years later, gold bars were also made available. Conditions were set to allow individual buyers to export them from Uzbekistan under certain terms.

These measures were explained by the desire to reduce the Uzbek economy's reliance on foreign currency. Furthermore, experts believe that gold expands investment opportunities and aids in preserving savings.