Making sense of Uzbek economic figures is a difficult task. With no way to verify official data, observers must parse the limited information Tashkent drips out. And those official stats often appear more like a wish than reality.
So take the following in that spirit.
Citing parliamentary budget committee papers, the Novyy Vek newspaper reports that Tashkent posted a budget surplus worth 0.4 percent of GDP in the period from January to March this year.
The surplus stood at 86.7 billion sums ($41.6 million at the official exchange rate) in the first quarter of 2013, Novyy Vek said on June 4. Budget revenue was $2.58 billion (24.8 percent of the first quarter GDP) and expenditure totaled $2.53 billion (24.4 percent). The newspaper did not provide budget figures for 2012, but said the 2013 national budget was approved with a deficit of $575.5 million, or 1 percent of GDP.
"The main factors increasing the state budget's revenue … are the expanding tax basis and increasing tax collection," Novyy Vek reported, citing the parliamentary documents.
While local income and corporate tax rates have stayed largely unchanged over the past year, Tashkent increased the petrol tax by 20 percent in 2013 and has slapped unpopular new excise and customs duties on a wide range of imports, sparking inflation fears.
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