The International Monetary Fund’s latest assessment, reported on 24 June, credits Uzbekistan with strong, broad-based growth in 2025: real GDP up 7.7%, driven by domestic consumption, services and construction. Inflation fell from 9.8% at the end of 2024 to 7.3% a year later. Unemployment dropped to 4.8%.
The caution sat right next to the praise. The Fund urged Tashkent to hold monetary policy tight and keep its reform programme moving, and it warned that geopolitical tension and global uncertainty are adding risk to the outlook. The growth is real. The conditions that produced it are turning.
The timing is pointed. The verdict lands as the Eurasian Development Bank opens its annual meeting in Almaty, where the regional story on stage is last week’s: fast growth, a combined economy past $600 billion, a decade of catch-up. The IMF’s note is a reminder that the watchdogs price in the part the forums leave off the slide.
For Uzbekistan the risk list is familiar: inflation that is lower but still above target, a current account that leans on gold prices and remittances, and a reform agenda, the financial centre, the special-economic-zone law, the privatisations, that has to clear on schedule to keep the capital coming. The growth number is the headline. The follow-through is the test, the same test this desk has put to every forum this month.