Economic Miracle of Post-Soviet Space: Why Uzbekistan Managed to Achieve What No Other Post-Soviet State Achieved

Uzbekistan is not usually considered an economic success story, but in fact it is: its GDP increased since 1989 more than in any other post-communist country, except for China, Vietnam and Turkmenistan. The success of Uzbekistan is very much similar to the Chinese – gradual economic reforms with the preservation of the capacity of state institutions, good macroeconomic policy and export oriented industrial policy. What makes Uzbekistan unique is that no other former Soviet republic managed to follow this route. There are countries with healthy state finances and low inflation (most FSU states), there are some countries with reasonable state capacity (Baltics, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan), but there are no countries that keep undervalued exchange rate together with strong tax stimuli for export of manufactures. Uzbek example shows that such a policy pays off.