The Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis of Uzbekistan held a plenary session on 18 November to consider the forecast of the key macroeconomic indicators, the concept of the tax and budget policy and the draft state budget of Uzbekistan for 2012.

The government’s proposals on the forecast macroeconomic indicators envisage preservation in the coming year of the stable high growth rates of the gross domestic product, industrial production, agriculture, investments and services.

It was noted that thanks to the consistent implementation of the country’s own development model, which is widely acknowledged as the “Uzbek model” of reforms, Uzbekistan became one of the few countries in the world, which have preserved macroeconomic stability and economic growth despite the negative impact of the global financial and economic crisis.

The concept of the tax and budget policy and the draft state budget for 2012 provide for the implementation of measures aimed at ensuring further positive changes in the living standards, increasing the wages of the public sector employees, pensions, allowances and stipends, as well as stimulating domestic demand as a key factor for sustainable economic growth.

The measures planned for the next year include supporting the expansion of production of consumer goods, including through extending the tax benefits previously offered to producers, increasing the budgetary and extrabudgetary state funds expenditure for capital investments, expansion of road construction and housing construction in rural areas.

To support the development of small and private businesses in industry, reduction of the single tax for micro and small enterprises from 6% to 5% is planned. Besides, the fixed tax for individual entrepreneurs operating in the service sector is planned to be reduced on average 2 times.

The implementation of the measures planned in the concept of tax policy will allow to reduce the tax burden on the economy by 0.7 percentage points in the coming year, it was said.

Following the discussion, the Legislative Chamber approved the draft forecast of the key macroeconomic indicators, main directions of tax and budget policy and the draft state budget of Uzbekistan for 2012, UzA informs.