# Uzbekistan reform opening under Shavkat Mirziyoyev

### Economic liberalization alongside persistent controls on speech and power

[Shavkat Mirziyoyev](/people/shavkat-mirziyoyev) became Uzbekistan's president following [Islam Karimov](/people/islam-karimov)'s death in 2016, inheriting a centralized state economy and an extensive security apparatus. His administration pursued currency, trade and labor-market changes while retaining a presidential political system with limited opposition. In September 2017, the government unified the exchange rate and eased controls on foreign currency, ending a system in which the official price of the som diverged sharply from the informal market. The [World Bank](/organizations/world-bank) identified that change as a turning point because businesses could transact more predictably and government statistics became more accessible. This early opening strengthened [cross-border trade integration](/drivers/cross-border-trade-integration), although business opportunities remained shaped by state institutions.

By 2018, authorities had simplified some restrictions on travel and business registration. In January 2019, Uzbekistan cut tax rates for companies and individuals, as described in the World Bank's August 22 economic update. The same report noted efforts to promote tourism, attract investment and improve data transparency. These changes provided measurable counter-evidence to the view that the post-Karimov presidency merely preserved every element of the previous system. They also created a new test for the [quality of public administration](/drivers/quality-of-public-administration): market access depended on the performance of tax offices, regulators, border authorities and courts, not only on presidential declarations.

Reform in the cotton sector produced some of the clearest documented labor outcomes. Uzbekistan had long relied on coercive mobilization of schoolchildren and adults for its harvest. The [International Labour Organization](/organizations/international-labour-organization) reported in January 2021 that systematic forced and child labor had ended in the 2020 harvest, while some individual cases remained. On March 1, 2022, ILO monitoring of the 2021 harvest found that 99 percent of interviewed cotton pickers worked voluntarily. The organization estimated that millions of children and hundreds of thousands of adults had been removed from forced labor over the longer reform period. This improvement resulted from government changes combined with international monitoring and pressure from campaigners; it was not a unilateral achievement by a single official.

The political opening was narrower. [Human Rights Watch](/organizations/human-rights-watch) described renewed prosecution of critical bloggers ahead of the October 2021 presidential election, which Mirziyoyev won without genuine competitive opposition. In 2022, proposals to change Uzbekistan's constitution generated protests in Karakalpakstan. Authorities used substantial force against demonstrations in July 2022, and subsequent trials raised concerns about due process. Planned constitutional changes included provisions that could permit the president to serve two additional seven-year terms, illustrating continuing [executive-power concentration](/drivers/executive-power-concentration). Restrictions on independent human rights organizations and criminal penalties for public criticism also limited the improvement in [media freedom](/drivers/media-freedom).

In April 2023, a constitutional referendum passed after the contentious Karakalpakstan provisions were revised; in July 2023, Mirziyoyev won a new presidential election following the revised term framework. The combination of a more accessible economy and constrained politics is the defining feature of the opening. International labor monitors documented meaningful reductions in systemic coercion, and investors gained practical benefits from exchange-rate liberalization. Yet police power, weak party competition and prosecutions of critics continued to curtail the public's ability to challenge state choices. Shavkat Mirziyoyev presided over both trends, making the achievements in labor and trade inseparable from scrutiny of how authority remained concentrated and civic safeguards were enforced.

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## Methodology

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