OSCE promotes development of good corporate governance within Uzbekistan’s state-owned enterprises

TASHKENT, 22 December 2014 – An OSCE-organized national seminar aimed at facilitating discussions on how to improve  corporate governance in the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) of Uzbekistan started today in Tashkent.

The one-day seminar is organized by the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Uzbekistan together with the State Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan on Privatization, De-monopolization and the Development of Competition. The seminar gathered around 50 participants representing regulators and state-owned enterprises.

The participants discussed inefficiencies in existing internal checks, balances and incentives in companies, where the government has a controlling stake, and the role of the government in managing such companies. An international expert invited to facilitate the seminar presented best practices of corporate governance in the OSCE region, as well as experiences of reforming SOEs in economies in transition.

“In quickly changing economic environment good corporate governance is one of the crucial factors for commercial success of not only private corporations, but also state-owned enterprises,” said Ambassador György Szabó, the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Uzbekistan. Reforming such companies is for sure a complex and long process, but in the end it helps them to more effectively withstand market pressures and integrate into global economic processes.”

The OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Uzbekistan supports the development of the methodology to streamline principles of good corporate governance into the SOEs of Uzbekistan based on the Principles of Corporate Governance developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).