Dear Amcham members and friends,

2018 has been a very busy year for all of us with tremendous changes. The government issued new reforms, almost on a daily basis, and it was hard for us to keep with the pace they set.

Liberalisation of the visa regime, announcement of the new tax law, new foreign investment law, the PPP law and many more initiatives have been taken to open up the country and attract more foreign investments.

For AmCham it has also been a very busy year with many events taking place. We were very pleased to have so many prominent government officials speak at our monthly meetings, sometimes twice a month. Our committees have been very active as well and we are very happy with the new committee which has been set up the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Committee (headed by Muhammadali Makhmudov of Legalmax) which organised their first seminar during the Central Asian Investment Forum last October.

2019 will be the year of Active Investments and Social Development in Uzbekistan and we are looking forward to continue our dialogue with the government. The government and the EBRD are in the process of setting up a (foreign) investors council and we hope that the AmCham can also play an important role in the council and voice the opinions of our members.

On behalf of the Board of Directors and the staff I hereby wish you all a very Healthy and Happy New Year !

Hugo W.Minderhoud

President