TashkentVolkswagen, Foton, and JAC will all open Uzbekistan assembly plants by year-end.
Volkswagen begins in Tashkent then scales to the Angren free economic zone; Foton and JAC launch simultaneously, the presidential press service said.
President Mirziyoyev approved an export phase; no target countries or volumes have been disclosed.
Sources: TASS
THE DOUBLE-LANDLOCKED PROBLEM
Uzbekistan is one of only two double-landlocked countries on Earth — every export must cross at least two borders to reach a port. This geography has historically priced its manufactured goods out of global markets and is the constraint any auto export strategy has to beat.
THE GM MONOPOLY THAT WAS
For two decades, UzAuto Motors — a state-owned joint venture with GM — held a near-total monopoly on the domestic car market, protected by import tariffs that doubled the price of foreign cars. Quality stagnated, waitlists ran years long, and a black market in delivery slots flourished.
THE MIRZIYOYEV OPENING
After Karimov's death in 2016, Mirziyoyev began dismantling the closed economy his predecessor built — currency convertibility in 2017, tariff cuts, and active courting of foreign capital. The auto sector, long the symbol of protected inefficiency, became a showcase for the new posture.
WHY CHINESE AUTOMAKERS GO ABROAD
China produces more cars than the US, Japan, and Germany combined, with vast domestic overcapacity. Foton and JAC are part of a wave of mid-tier Chinese OEMs setting up assembly in third countries to dodge EU and US tariffs on China-origin vehicles and to access markets where Chinese brands are still unknown.
THE FREE ECONOMIC ZONE PLAYBOOK
Angren and similar zones offer tax holidays, customs exemptions on imported components, and simplified labor rules. The model is borrowed from China's own special economic zones of the 1980s — and from Morocco's Tangier corridor, which turned a peripheral country into Africa's largest car exporter in fifteen years.
THE EXPORT MATH
A landlocked assembler can only compete on regional sales — Central Asia, Russia, and possibly Iran and Pakistan via overland corridors. The presidential decree's silence on target markets and volumes is the signal: the plants are real, but the export thesis is still being negotiated with the partners who actually control the brands.