REGIONAL ASSESSMENT OF THE OPENNESS OF SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES IN UZBEKISTAN BASED ON A SYNTHETIC INDICATOR
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20456029Abstract
This study conducts a two-level analysis based on Ferrieri’s Openness Synthetic Indicator (OSI)
methodology for all 14 administrative-territorial units of the Republic of Uzbekistan. The two levels examined
are: (1) the overall economic openness of each region and (2) the openness of the special economic zones
(SEZs) located within each region. The analysis covers the period from 2018 to 2024. The results show that
Tashkent city, with an average OSI of 0.930, and Tashkent region, with an average OSI of 0.429, consistently
exhibit the highest levels of regional openness. At the SEZ level, the SEZ OSI remained below the regional OSI
in all 14 territories, resulting in a negative openness gap throughout the study period. This finding indicates that
Uzbekistan’s SEZs have not yet fully fulfilled their mandate of enhancing economic openness relative to their
respective regions.
Keywords
Openness Synthetic Indicator, Ferrieri index, special economic zone, region, subnational analysis, Uzbekistan, investment, employmentReferences
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