Abstract
The First President of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, continued to isolate the country for many years even after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, which in turn worsened all the strategic sectors in the country, especially the aviation market and tourism industries. However, in the period 2017-2018, the skyrocket in the number of tourists, from 2.69 million to 5.34 million, became possible due to the coming of Shavkat Mirziyoyev to power as the new President. But the lack of air connectivity kept reducing aspiration of traveling from non-CIS countries. To solve the issue, the new President Mirziyoyev’s large-scale policy reforms concerned the air transport sector, too. The main objective of the study is to compare the development of the country under the leadership of various political reforms using the aviation industry of Uzbekistan as an example. To achieve the purposes, the authors examine reciprocal action/influence between airlines, airports and government. In addition, a significant amount of data was collected from Russian-language sources to enrich the content. Even though the paper was written before the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors' research is still important to nudge readers into a new perspective.
Highlights
Uzbekistan, the country in the heart of Central Asia with the richest human capital in the region and the diverse tourist resources such as Silk Road sites, kept being an isolated country for many years even after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991
Even though everything is fine with the Uzbekistan Airport Joint-Stock Companies (JSC), not everything is so smooth with Uzbekistan Airways JSC.UzA JSC should have stopped being a monopolist de jure
In 2018, President Mirziyoyev [27] gave a clear order to the Information and Analytical Center under the Cabinet of Ministers to coordinate the development of policies for local and foreign carriers in the national air transportation market; even so, the Uzbek lawyer Alisher Annazarov outlines that the state did not ensure equal conditions for all would-be resident airlines in local airports [31]
Summary
Uzbekistan, the country in the heart of Central Asia with the richest human capital in the region and the diverse tourist resources such as Silk Road sites, kept being an isolated country for many years even after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The country was under a democratic autocracy of the First President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov; in the first years of his rule, he tried to modernize the country’s economic and political systems. During his presidency, the country was far from any international financial integration, global economic and political network. The coming of Shavkat Mirziyoyev to power as the new President of the Republic of Uzbekistan in September 2016 and the “open door” policy proposed by him initiated effective economic and political reforms in the country.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
