Gov’t may increase subsidy to UzAuto by 3.5 times

The Cabinet of Ministers is asking the Oliy Majlis to amend the expiring 2022 state budget law.

Deputy Rasul Kusherbayev informed that the relevant bill was “hastily handed over” to deputies. It envisages increasing the 2022 budget by another 2 billion soums:

ꞏ due to the increasing number of private kindergartens operating on the basis of public-private partnership, allocating additional subsidies for this direction to the Ministry of Preschool Education - 407.1 billion soums;
ꞏ to the Ministry of Housing and Communal Services - 404.7 billion soums in order to compensate for the damages caused by the use of low tariffs for heat supply to the population;
ꞏ to the Ministry of Economic Development and Poverty Reduction - 224.5 billion soums for allocating funds from the state budget for disposal fees paid by local automobile industry enterprises in exporting countries;
ꞏ 1,000.0 billion soums to the Ministry of Finance for redistribution (transfer) to local budgets in order to finance additional measures that need to be solved immediately in the regions.

“The most interesting thing is to whom and for what purposes the disposal fee is used, whether the monopolist UzAuto Motors is paying the disposal fee or not, and at the same time it is being hidden, it is illogical to ask the state budget to allocate 224.5 billion soums for the disposal fee costs. Most likely, this money from the public treasury will be transferred to the account of the monopolist company,” Kusherbayev wrote.

The deputy expressed his complete opposition to the adoption of this project. Referring to the Ministry of Economy, he clarified that the requested amount of 224.5 billion soums is intended to be paid to two local producers. These are:

ꞏ UzAuto Motors – 137.5 billion soums;
ꞏ SamAuto – 87 billion soums.

According to the current budget law, 100 billion soums will be allocated in 2022 to compensate the costs of foreign disposal fees for exported cars from the state budget. If the government’s request is satisfied, this amount will reach 324.5 billion soums.

At the same time, the fact that some of the export costs of automakers are borne by taxpayers is causing criticism.