On November 15, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev was provided information on ongoing steps aimed at easing doing business, the presidential press service said.
Reportedly, the easing doing business is a priority area of the country's economic policy. Thanks to the recent steps, the number of business entities has been increasing. More than half of the GDP is created by small businesses. They also have a high share in exports.
Currently, there are more than 6,000 regulatory and 40,000 technical documents that regulate business activities. Some outdated requirements make it difficult to introduce new products, technologies and services. The President’s Measures to Simplify State Regulation of Doing Business Decree” based on the state program for the implementation of the development strategy in the “Year of Ensuring Human Interests and Development of the Mahalla”, the regulations that impede the activities of businesses were revised, with a number of restrictions lifted. In particular, the state regulation of entrepreneurship have been clearly defined. These are state registration, licensing, technical procedures, tariff and non-tariff regulation, compulsory insurance, state control, protection of competition, and liability.
Based on the analysis, many procedures have been reduced. For example, such processes as a written notification of creditors in case of a decrease in the authorized capital of an economic entity, suspension of electricity supply when consumed in excess of volumes, and limit for employees hired by individual entrepreneurs on separate records with the tax authorities cause a lot of trouble. These mandatory requirements will be removed from January 1, 2023. It also provides for the creation of a unified register of mandatory business requirements. The register will be formed in two stages and will be fully launched from July 1, 2025. It will be prohibited to hold entrepreneurs liable for claims not included in this register.
During an open dialogue with business leaders on August 22 this year, the President gave instructions on digitalization and reduction of paper workflow in the field. According to the previous procedure, documents on salaries and other income of a legal entity, as well as taxes calculated on them, had to be kept in paper form for 75 years. Since these data are also available in the database of the tax authorities, the new decree abolished the requirement to store them in paper form. Also, business entities are now exempted from maintaining internal primary accounting documents in paper form if they are transmitted through information systems. As a result of these changes, the bureaucratic burden will be reduced and the work of 587 thousand enterprises will be facilitated.
In addition, from January 1, 2023, the practice of submitting quarterly financial statements and 9 various statistical reports to the tax authorities is cancelled.
Having listened to the information of the officials, the head of state instructed to organize the effective implementation of the decree, as well as consistently continue work to simplify business activities and create the most comfortable business environment in the country.
