Publishing industry in Uzbekistan sees surge as tax breaks and investments roll in

Mirgoziyeva noted that over the past four years, the number of publishing houses in the country has increased 3.5 times, reaching 601.

"Out of these, 538 are private publishing houses. The production capacity of publishers has doubled, and now, on average, 11,000 titles are released annually, totaling 40 million copies. The sector has attracted $25 million in direct investment. Moreover, starting from January 1, 2025, publishing enterprises will be exempt from paying profit tax for five years," the MP said.

It’s worth recalling that in 2023, during a meeting with voters in Tashkent as a presidential candidate, Shavkat Mirziyoyev outlined plans for publishing and library development over the next seven years.

"Each year, 100 top literary works and 50 children's and teen books will be commissioned, with authors receiving a royalty of 100 million UZS per title. These books will be printed in 20,000 copies and distributed free of charge to schools and libraries. We will allocate 200 billion UZS annually for this initiative. In the next seven years, the entire library fund — nearly 40 million books — will be digitized and included in a unified catalog. By 2030, all libraries in the country will be fully renovated. For this, we will allocate 500 billion UZS," the president stated.

President Mirziyoyev also announced that the salaries of school librarians would be brought in line with those of teaching staff.

At last year’s Book Festival, Sanjar Nazar, head of the publishing house Akademnashr, pointed out that the growth in book sales in Uzbekistan had stagnated since 2020.

Earlier, it was reported that a new article is being introduced into the Criminal Code to allow sentence reductions for prisoners who read books. The initiative aims to support moral rehabilitation through reading. Under this program, if an inmate reads a listed book and passes an exam on it, their sentence may be reduced by three days per book. A maximum of 10 books may be read per year for this benefit.