EBRD to resume lending in Uzbekistan after decade-long hiatus

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said Friday it was set to resume lending in ex-Soviet Uzbekistan Friday after a rights row wrecked their ties more than a decade ago.

The EBRD said in a statement that it was looking at "increasing its investment activity" in the Central Asian country, indicating a thaw in relations between the bank and the country's leadership under new Uzbek president Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

"I think there is a very strong commitment (to economic reform) from the top down," EBRD President Suma Chakrabarti told AFP during the bank's visit to the tightly controlled country this week.

"The president has made that clear with the new development strategy which is about the state doing a lot less and the private sector doing a lot more."

The EBRD scaled back lending to economically-troubled Uzbekistan in 2004 and had ceased lending in the country by 2007.

Currently the bank, which is the economically depressed region's largest institutional investor, has a small project portfolio in the country worth 8 million euros.

The turning point in the pair's relationship came after former EBRD president Jean Lemierre tore into the country's dismal rights record under late autocrat Islam Karimov during an ill-tempered meeting in Tashkent in 2003.

Mirziyoyev, a former prime minister, came to power after Karimov died from a stroke last year and raised hopes of a thaw by releasing prominent political prisoners and moving to smooth ties with other countries in the region. "Human rights and civil society are still very much part of the discussion," Chakrabarti told AFP.