Tax breaks to finance GSM rollout

Uzbekistan’s government passed a new resolution on 19 March to develop conditions to hasten the development of mobile networks in the country, local news portal UzDaily writes. Under the new rules, state-backed telco Uzbektelecom has been given a five-year exemption from paying most of its duties including those relating to its operating licences, the design, construction or exploitation of mobile networks, and its spectrum allocations. However, the money freed up by the relief must be ploughed into a new GSM network for the operator’s wireless division, Uzmobile, and the funds will be controlled by the State Tax Committee and the State Committee for ICT (CCITT). The new GSM network will be operated in parallel to Uzmobile’s existing CDMA-450 network, and will use the frequencies made available by the closure of defunct Russian-backed cellco MTS Uzbekistan (known previously as Uzdunrobita).