Uzbekistan plans to transfer pension savings to investment firms

AKIPRESS.COM – Uzbekistan plans to transfer citizens’ pension savings from the People’s Bank to the Pension Fund from 2027, with the funds later placed under the management of investment companies, Kun.uz reported.

Murodbek Atajanov, executive director of the Off-budgetary Pension Fund under the Ministry of Economy and Finance, announced the plans on September 25 at a press conference on the draft pension reform.

Under the proposed system, pension savings would initially be transferred to the Pension Fund. However, the funded pension system and the Pension Fund would remain separate legal entities, with their own supervisory boards, management bodies and independent strategic and institutional policies.

“The supervisory board will be separate, and their management boards will also be separate, but they will be part of the pension system,” Atajanov said.

The supervisory board is expected to include representatives of local authorities, businesses and foreign experts. According to Atajanov, the board, rather than the government or the Ministry of Economy and Finance, would make decisions on managing the funds and determining investment policy.

The authorities also plan to hold a competitive selection process to choose investment managers that would receive the pension savings for management.

“The reason is that we now need to collect all the funds and accumulate them in one place,” Atajanov said.

Under the draft pension reform, the funded pension system would be transferred from the People’s Bank to the Pension Fund starting in 2027. The funds held in individual pension savings accounts, including additional contributions from the state budget and social tax, as well as income generated from investing the savings in financial and investment instruments, are proposed to be recognized as the personal property of citizens.

The right to inherit these funds would also be preserved.