Diversification of Uzbekistan's Exports and Integration Into Global Value Chains

Export growth in Uzbekistan since 2017 has been rapid, but it is unclear whether it reflects broader diversification or deeper participation in global value chains (GVCs). This article triangulates publicly available evidence for 2017–2026 to separate three questions: how concentrated Uzbekistan’s exports are by product and market, whether the composition of exports has shifted towards processed and capital goods, and what is known about domestic value creation within GVCs. Using World Bank WITS indicators (2017–2023), official Statistics data for 2024, 2025 and January–June 2026, and published GVC evidence for 2015, the analysis finds that the number of exported HS6 products rose by about 68% between 2017 and 2023, the raw-material share of goods exports fell from 12.1% to 5.7%, and capital goods rose from 1.7% to 6.3%. Market concentration, however, shows no trend (HHI between 0.11 and 0.29), and non-monetary gold remained about 28–29% of total exports in 2024–2025 before falling to 9.5% in January–June 2026 following a halt in gold sales rather than any structural change. Comparable post-2018 domestic value-added data could not be verified, so GVC deepening cannot be established; the article states this limit explicitly. Policy implications focus on measurement, firm-level upgrading, logistics and trade agreements, and are presented as hypotheses for further testing rather than causal findings.