Alisher Ilkhamov

29 August, 2023

This is Ilkhamov’s presentation to the conference “Turning Point In Eurasia: Geopolitics, Economics And Civil Society In Central Asia – Current Situation And Future Prospects” held in Almaty, Kazakhstan on August 28-29, 2023. The main thesis is that the system of cotton-textile clusters created from above by the government of Uzbekistan has nothing to do with a free market economy, at least with the conditions of free and fair market competition. This system still remains command, as it was under Islam Karimov, while private textile companies, including those with foreign capital, simply fit into the framework of this command economy and play by its rules, combining the privileges of monopolists in each agricultural district with administrative power.