Photo from Gazeta.uz
The British magazine The Economist has declared Uzbekistan the country that has made the greatest progress over the last year. The editorial board justified its decision with reference to the increased pace of reform in the Central Asian country.
“Three years ago Uzbekistan was an old-fashioned post-Soviet dictatorship, a closed society run with exceptional brutality and incompetence,” the article states. The magazine reminded its readers that the regime forced thousands of men, women and children to work in the cotton fields and dealt brutally with dissidents.
Having replaced Islam Karimov, who ruled the country despotically for 27 years, Shavkat Mirziyoyev at first made few changes, the publication notes. However, after removing the head of the National Security Service Rustam Inoyatov in 2018, he initiated a wave of reforms that has accelerated over the past year.
“His government has largely ended forced labour. Its most notorious prison camp has been closed. Foreign journalists are let in. Bureaucrats are banned from calling on small businesses, which they previously did constantly, to bully them for bribes. More border crossings have opened, helping unite families divided by Central Asia’s crazy quilt of frontiers. Foreign technocrats have been invited to help overhaul the state-stifled economy,” writes the publication.
“Uzbekistan still has a long way to go, but no other country travelled as far in 2019,” the article concludes.
Other contenders for the title of country of the year were North Macedonia, Sudan and New Zealand. Last year’s winner was Armenia.
