Uzbekistan: the region's growth market, outside the customs union

The National Statistics Committee's release of 21 January 2026 gives preliminary figures for the year: imports of $47,354.5 million, up 18.5%, exports of $33,812.3 million, and total trade of $81.2 billion, up 20.7%. Machinery and transport equipment made up $15,995.9 million of imports, 33.8% of everything bought abroad. That is the line a manufacturer of equipment should read twice: one import dollar in three is spent on the category it sells. We went through these figures line by line, and through what they mean for a first demand test, in the Journal.

By country, China supplied $14,755.9 million, Russia $8,644.2 million and Kazakhstan $3,423.8 million. Turkey follows at $1,888.1 million, South Korea at $1,676.1 million, Germany at $1,282.2 million, India at $1,153.1 million and the United States at $712.3 million.

Two things in that list decide a foreign brand's route. Kazakhstan is the third supplier, which means a large share of goods reaches Tashkent through Almaty, and a Kazakh distributor with an Uzbek office is a common way in. And Germany at $1.3 billion shows European goods are already on the shelf, well behind China but present, so the buyer has a reference price and a reference brand before you arrive.

Uzbekistan is not a member of the Eurasian Economic Union. It holds observer status, which grants no customs or certification privileges. An EAC certificate does not apply. Products are certified under the national system: the Agency for Technical Regulation, the body foreign certifiers still call by its old name, UzStandart, draws up the list of products subject to mandatory certification, and the Cabinet of Ministers approves it. Whether your product is on that list is the first thing to check, and the list lives with the agency, not in a foreign certifier's brochure.

The rules are moving. In February 2026 a presidential decree set out a reform of technical regulation; certification laboratories such as GMA Labs describe its direction as mandatory certification narrowed to high-risk products, wider voluntary assessment for the rest, and acceptance of international test reports, with the changes rolling out through 2026 and 2027. For a supplier this means two things: budget a separate certification for Uzbekistan today, and check the status of your product category at the time of shipment rather than from memory, because a low-risk product may face a lighter procedure next year than this one.

DataReportal's Digital 2026 report counts 37.2 million people and 33.1 million internet users, 89.0% of the population. Instagram's advertising tools reach 14.1 million, TikTok reports 2.59 million adult users and Facebook 2.30 million. Telegram is missing from that report by design: DataReportal builds its figures from platforms' advertising data, and its methodology note says so, while Telegram publishes none. The estimate that circulates in the market, 18 to 24 million users, comes from Insight Business and was carried by Spot.uz in January 2025.

Treat that as an estimate, but plan around it. Price lists go out in Telegram channels, importers confirm orders in Telegram chats, and a supplier's first appearance in front of an Uzbek buyer is usually a forwarded message, not a website. Instagram is the second layer, where a brand's face and factory live. A presence built for LinkedIn and Google alone does not reach the desk where the decision is made.

Article 4 of the Constitution names Uzbek as the state language. In our work with importers in Tashkent, correspondence and contracts have run in Russian, and product pages in Uzbek are what reach buyers in the regions. A supplier arriving with Russian-language materials can start; one that adds Uzbek gets further from the capital.

MiningMetals Uzbekistan runs on 27-29 October 2026 at Uzexpocentre in Tashkent; the organiser reports 170 exhibitors, 4,135 visitors and 19 participating countries at the last edition. UzBuild, the construction show, is the bigger event at the same venue: the organiser counts 450 exhibiting companies from 22 countries and more than 11,000 visitors at the 2026 edition, and has set the next one for 16-18 March 2027.

Eleven thousand visitors over three days is most of the country's construction trade walking past a stand once. The exhibitor list published before the show is worth more than the stand: it names the importers and contractors already in the category, months before anyone books a flight.

We work Uzbekistan from Almaty and Tashkent. The Pilot month checks demand with the importers who already carry the category, works out the certification route for the specific product, builds a landing page in Russian with an Uzbek version where the buyer is regional, and runs the first outreach where the buyer reads, in Telegram. The month ends with a written answer on whether the market is worth the entry.