Uzbekistan Plans to Double SME Loan Portfolio to 436 Trillion Soums

By Daniel Okafor

Uzbekistan's Central Bank wants to double the SME loan portfolio from 218 trillion soums by 2030 and lift the share of small-business lending in GDP from 12% to 20%. The plan sits inside a Concept for Supporting Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises covering 2026–2030, which the regulator approved on a pilot basis in Tashkent. The document contains 25 interconnected initiatives and will be reviewed annually against results and market conditions.

The concept rests on three objectives: sustainable business growth, equal access to financing and financial system stability. Access to credit, the Central Bank said, should depend on a business's economic viability "rather than its location, the gender or age of its owner, or the availability of collateral." Lending expansion must proceed while banks keep meeting prudential requirements.

What targets does the concept set for 2030?

The document fixes several numerical goals:

• The share of state-owned financial institutions in SME lending should fall from 73% to 65%, or to 55% if a major state-owned bank is privatized.
• Non-bank credit organizations should grow from 1.7% to 5% of total lending.
• SMEs covered by reliable credit information should rise from 68% to 80%.
• Online microloans should reach 60% of all microcredit, with average issuance time cut to one hour.

How are the 25 initiatives organized?

Seventeen initiatives are institutional, five concern financial infrastructure and three concern financial products. Institutional measures come first in the timeline because they build the legal framework needed to push infrastructure and product initiatives past the pilot stage.

One institutional measure transforms the Business Development Bank. It would combine long-term SME financing, resource mobilization from international financial institutions and distribution of targeted funding through intermediaries within a single system. The institution will face prudential regulation under the same rules as other financial institutions, with commercial operations and state support accounted for separately and subsidies disclosed.

The concept also proposes a financial ombudsman to resolve disputes between financial institutions and businesses outside the courts, covering consumers as well as micro and small enterprises. Legislative amendments would let banks offer accounting, tax, legal and consulting services, because a significant share of loan rejections for micro and small businesses stems from poorly prepared applications rather than weak viability.

Other institutional measures include:

• A methodological framework for Islamic finance, with licensing starting at pilot banks and Islamic windows.
• Tax neutrality and elimination of double taxation on successive ownership transfers.
• Competitive allocation of Apex Fund resources to microfinance organizations, based on portfolio quality, risk management and rural coverage, plus guarantee products letting microfinance institutions borrow from commercial banks.
• An innovation hub inside the Central Bank's Department for Financial Technology Development.
• Quarterly analytical reports on SME conditions, published on the Central Bank website, and big-data modelling of the SME financing gap.

On collateral, the value agreed by the parties in writing would serve as the starting price at auction, generated automatically by the electronic auction system. The document notes that lengthy enforcement and unpredictable sale prices push banks to apply heavy discounts to collateral, shrinking available credit.

What changes for exporters and hedging?

The concept proposes a National Hedging Company under a customer-bank-company model, providing continuous quotations for derivatives in the domestic FX and money markets. A counter-guarantee system is also planned. At an open dialogue between the President and entrepreneurs on 18 August 2026, businesses borrowing up to 10 billion soums were told they need collateral worth only 25% of the loan amount.

Exporters selling through overseas trading houses, consignment warehouses and distribution networks could repatriate proceeds within contract periods instead of the current 180-calendar-day deadline. The Ministry of Investment, Industry and Trade, the Tax Committee, the Customs Committee, the Agency for Technical Regulation and the Central Bank will assess the rationale. An expanded interagency regulatory sandbox and a "2,000 Exporting Enterprises" programme for medium-sized businesses round out the package.

The five infrastructure initiatives target information asymmetry. They include a centralized digital platform for recording, valuing and selling collateral, integrated with banks and marketplaces through APIs; a post-monitoring and early-warning system tracking jobs, revenue and tax payments; staged open banking; a credit-scoring model using tax, payment, sales and utility data; and a mobile marketplace for SME financial services including fintechs, with total financing costs disclosed.

The three product initiatives cover pre-export financing, product range expansion and international factoring. New products will include seasonal repayment loans, revolving working-capital facilities, financing secured by equipment and inventory, and products for businesses without collateral. A guarantee organization under the Trade Development Company JSC will issue guarantees up to 10 billion soums, capped at 50% of a factoring transaction, and until 1 January 2029 will compensate 50% of discount or interest, within a 4% annual limit.

How large is the sector the plan targets?

Small enterprises and microfirms numbered 403,800, or 85%, of the country's 474,900 operating enterprises as of 1 January 2026, according to the National Statistics Committee. As of 1 July 2026, small business entities reached 1.2361 million, including 526,700 microfirms, 375,100 individual entrepreneurs, 334,400 dehkan farms, 23,200 artisans and 5,100 family enterprises.

In the first half of 2026, small businesses generated 50.5% of GDP, or 518.7 trillion soums in added value, and 44,000 new small enterprises and microfirms were established. SME exports totalled US$7.48 billion, or 47.2% of national exports. In 2025 the sector employed roughly 74% of the workforce, about 10.5 million people, though its GDP share slipped from 53.8% in 2023 to 52.2% in 2025.

The gap is stark. The World Bank's 2025 assessment found only 10% of small and 16% of medium-sized enterprises have credit access, and put equity capital demand at US$20–30 billion against roughly US$2 billion in private equity commitments. In 2026, Uzbekistan plans to allocate 140 trillion soums in SME loans under presidential instructions, with family entrepreneurship loans in 37 lagging districts priced at 12% versus the standard 17.5%.

The Central Bank studied Germany's KfW, the British Business Bank, India's SIDBI and Korea's KODIT before drafting the concept. If the 2030 targets hold, the winners will be entrepreneurs with thin credit files, regional businesses and non-bank lenders competing for a market the state currently dominates.