On December 20 of this year, we listened with great interest and attention to the address of the head of our country Shavkat Mirziyoev to the parliament and the people of Uzbekistan.

The annual message, which announces the most important priorities for the development of the country, contains very important, very important decisions on the way to the happiness of our people, the prosperity of our republic.

After all, thanks to the ongoing reforms, the life of our people is becoming more prosperous every year. Speaking about this, President noted, first of all, that this year, for the first time in our history, the amount of pensions and social benefits was brought to a level not lower than the minimum consumer spending, over the past six years, almost 300 thousand houses have been built across the country, or 10 times more than a year earlier, in 10 months of 2022 558.6 thousand citizens of Uzbekistan and mentioned that he had gone abroad on vacation. In addition, Head of state emphasized that the gross domestic product exceeded 80 billion USD for the first time in history, noting that this year our economy received 8 billion USD of investments, and exports reached 19 billion USD. This is obvious when our country enters a new era of national development, it manifests itself in the comfortable lifestyle of our population.

Another important aspect of the petition,“...Focusing on supporting education, which is the biggest investment for the new Uzbekistan, is a huge foundation that is being laid for the future of our nation,” the President said.

As a citizen, I was very impressed by the feedback from our President. I will focus on some of them, this is the consolidation of the status, honor, dignity of teachers in the constitution separately. It is also relevant to reflect in the Constitution the improvement of working methods and increase the efficiency of our parliament. Dwelling on this, the President stressed that all proposals and wishes of citizens will be taken into account and the draft constitution will be submitted to a national referendum. It would not be an exaggeration to say that this is a real triumph of democracy.

In addition, speaking about energy, our esteemed president said: “Unfortunately, energy consumption in our economy is 2 times higher than in other countries. Therefore, we are adopting a national energy efficiency improvement program," he said and gave important instructions in this direction.

In fact, if large manufacturing enterprises, such as our plant, install solar photovoltaic plants with a capacity of 1 thousand megawatts for their own consumption, 2.5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity will be produced and directed to meet their needs per year. Thus, we will save both electricity and gas, as well as improve the environmental situation in the regions. Almalik Mining and Metallurgical Combine has developed a “roadmap” for energy saving. Propaganda events aimed at saving energy resources were held at the workplace and in the apartment of each worker-employee of the combine. Only this year, small solar photovoltaic plants with a total capacity of 750 kW were built and put into operation at two facilities of the combine. By the end of 2023, solar panels with a total capacity of 9 MW will be installed at 19 facilities of the plant. As a result of these works, significant energy savings are achieved.

Currently, work is underway on the project of a solar photovoltaic plant with a capacity of 100 MW with the involvement of foreign direct investment. It is planned to connect this plant directly to the existing power grids of the plant and reduce the use of natural gas for electricity generation, as well as to purchase environmentally friendly electricity by the plant in such a way as to guarantee its long-term use.

As a result of the conditions created in the republic, the Almalik Mining and Metallurgical Combine in 2022 exceeded all the established indicators.

Of course, at the same time, we face more pressing tasks. In 2023, the first stage of the development of the Yoshlik-1 deposit, which is important for the development of the country, will be completed, and the copper processing plant No. 3 with a processing capacity of 60 million tons of ore will be launched. Next year, ore processing will be increased to 100 million tons.

We are also starting projects for the 4th copper enrichment plant and a new copper smelter.

At the first stage of this megaproject – in 2021-2025 - 300 thousand tons of copper cathode, 25 tons of gold and 176 tons of silver will be obtained. At the next stages, work will begin on projects to increase the production of copper to 500 thousand tons, gold to 50 thousand tons and silver to 340 thousand tons.

In addition, we are working on a number of our other projects. In particular, scientific developments and research aimed at obtaining valuable components, including copper raw materials, non-ferrous, rare and rare metals, will be continued. Localization programs, digitization, and projects to create a cluster of the copper industry are also being implemented in stages.

In my address, I want to focus on one more important aspect. That the main goal is to increase exports of finished products by an additional 4 billion USD in 2023, It is noted that in 2023, the volume of exports for the first time in the country's history will exceed 23 billion USD.

Taking only copper and its processing as an example, if this product is currently exported in the amount of 2 billion USD per year, this figure will reach 8 billion USD after the copper industry cluster is fully put into operation.

It is clear that only a new look at the future of our state, the prosperity of the Motherland and the well-being of our people, new ideas and cohesive execution will bring practical results.

We are mobilizing all our forces and capabilities “on the one hand " for the unconditional fulfillment of the priority tasks outlined in the message.

Abdulla KHURSANOV,

Chairman of the Board of JSC Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Complex,

Member Senator of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan