Tashkent hosted the Second working group meeting Digital Skills for Competitiveness in Uzbekistan. The project is being implemented by the Government of Uzbekistan jointly with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The experts focused on the discussion of goals, preliminary results, and a further action plan that will contribute to the implementation of the digital transformation program in the economy over the next five years.
Term meaning:
“Digital transformation” is a process that allows flexibly responding to constant changes in market conditions.
Expert opinions:
A comprehensive and fundamental transformation of the national economy into a complete revision of the culture, operations, technologies, and principles for creating new business products and services. Starting this process, the digitalization at the level of small and medium-sized enterprises will affect products, services, marketing and distribution channels, business processes, supply chains, and the search for new partners in the market.
Preliminary analysis of the situation in the market of Uzbekistan, according to the OECD:
– during 2018-2020 Uzbekistan climbed 6 positions in the
UN e-government Development Index and took 87th place out of 193;
– services available for businesses include registration, licensing, VAT payment, and access to finance;
– insufficient level of basic ICT skills among the population;
– low index of local manufacturers having their websites (at the level of small and medium-sized enterprises);
– there is no specialized or authorized organization that would provide tools for the development of digital literacy for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
At the same time:
– there are incentives for digital development, including concessional loans and training subsidies that the state provides for SMEs;
– a program for issuing IT visas for foreign specialists was introduced.
Preliminary OECD recommendations aimed at using all available incentives and benefits to increase the digital literacy of businesses:
– conduct information campaigns for the population in various formats (media, open days, webinars);
– develop self-assessment tools to determine the level of digital maturity of Uzbek companies;
– create a single center that will allow businesses to access all public services at once;
– to implement international standards of the digital economy, the authorities should strengthen cooperation with private foreign companies
Laziz Kudratov – First Deputy Minister of Investments and Foreign Trade, Director General of the SDA:
– For the qualitative digital transformation of enterprises, a comprehensive strategy is needed, which will take into account the creation of an institutional framework that supports the active introduction of IT technologies in business, raising the awareness of business entities about services provided in various sectors of the economy and developing digital literacy development tools. The development strategy until 2030 approved by the President of Uzbekistan sets itself precisely these goals. Among the priorities is to increase the volume of services provided by 2.5 times. This includes the development of e-government, public services for the population, education, healthcare, and medicine.
By the end of the year, it is planned to install 6.5 thousand mobile stations that will connect remote settlements to the Internet and the share of their coverage will be increased to 60 percent. It also provides for the installation and launch of data centers throughout the country.
Charlotte Adrian – Head of the Delegation of the European Union in Uzbekistan:
– While the risk of a pandemic is still high in the world and the increase in the incidence still weighs on the development of the global economy, we must pay special attention to the development of small and medium-sized businesses. It is this sector that the crisis has had the greatest impact on. In particular, the traditional supply chains of small and medium-sized enterprises have been disrupted, and difficulties have arisen in their relationships with specific partners. And here it is important to pay attention to the creation of new jobs specifically in terms of the digitalization of the private sector. To do this, it is necessary to implement programs for the development of digital skills and digital business. In Uzbekistan, this program began to be implemented in 2020. We hope that our participation in the digitalization program will contribute to the integrated development of Uzbekistan.
William Thompson – Head of the Eurasia Division, OECD:
– In the development of business competitiveness, the presence of high-quality alternatives in a particular market plays a huge role. That is, here we are talking about the demonopolization of markets that will be included in the digitalization program. Here it is worth considering the experience of foreign companies operating through digital trading platforms.
The second and very important point. Speaking about the digital transformation of the economy as a whole, one should not focus only on the process of transferring business to the digital plane. Today we should talk, first of all, about the audit of business processes and public administration processes, and solve a set of tasks to identify current problems in this area. In order, based on the results of optimization, to effectively launch a digital transformation project.
Press Office of the Strategic Development Agency