ABSTRACT
According to official statistics, the Uzbek economy began to grow again in 1996 after five years of its transitional depression, the shallowest in the former Soviet Union: −16.5 per cent from the previous peak of GDP to its trough in 1995, using official figures. The comparable figure for the Commonwealth of Independent States as a whole was −38.5 per cent. Russia’s decline was (at least) −30 per cent; Ukraine −55 per cent; Belarus −32.7 per cent; and Kazakhstan −29 per cent. The war-torn economies of Armenia, Georgia, and Tajikistan suffered even more.
