Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Kristalina Georgieva will today land in Tashkent and hold meetings with government officials.
Uzbekistan became a member of the International Monetary Fund on September 21, 1992. In September 1993, an IMF representative office was opened in Tashkent. In the end of 90s, the ties between the government of Uzbekistan and the IMF began to deteriorate. The plummeting of world price of gold and cotton then, which were the main export items of the country, resulted in the higher level of protectionism in Uzbekistan’s currency control and international trade. A large gap begins to emerge between the official exchange and the black market rates.
Christopher Rosenberg, who served as a representative of the IMF in Uzbekistan in 2001 said then that the representative office in Uzbekistan would be suspended due to the unstable policy course of Karimov’s government and increasing economic isolation.
After the change of administration in Uzbekistan, relations with the IMF, as well as with other international organizations, began to improve. After free floating of the exchange rate as of September 2017. On September 19 of the same year, a bilateral meeting was held between the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev and the managing director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, with several agreements reached.