Privatization of Corporations in Uzbekistan in Comparison with Transition Economies of Central and Eastern Europe

The demise of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR signaled a rush to privatization in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The governments of these countries are trying to privatize i.e. transfer state-owned-and-operated enterprises to private owners and/or managers in order to create a viable private sector, capital markets and other institutions and processes, which describe a free market capitalist system. However, the pace of privatization has not been the same across the board. Whereas some of the Central and Eastern European countries are considered to be far ahead in privatization process, Uzbekistan lags behind their former peers from socialist camp – Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary, Poland, Estonia and some others . This paper argues that despite the fact that there were similarities at the starting point of transition, the differences in initial conditions and reform agenda of governments in Central Eastern Europe and Uzbekistan accounted for Uzbekistan’s slower pace of privatization.