With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan faced serious economic challenges: the breakdown of central planning from Moscow and the end of a reliable, if limited, system of interrepublican trade and payments mechanisms; production inefficiencies; the prevalence of monopolies; declining productivity; and loss of the significant subsidies and payments that had come from Moscow. All these changes signaled that fundamental reform would be necessary if the economy of Uzbekistan were to continue to be viable.

Traditionally a raw materials supplier for the rest of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan saw its economy hard hit by the breakdown of the highly integrated Soviet economy. Factories in Uzbekistan could not get the raw materials they needed to diversify the national economy, and the end of subsidies from Moscow was exacerbated by concurrent declines in world prices for Uzbekistan's two major export commodities, gold and cotton.

More about the Economy of Uzbekistan.

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Source: U.S. Library of Congress