Electronic Cooperation Portal helping entrepreneurs expand their businesses – Ministry

Electronic Cooperation Portal is proving useful for entrepreneurs in many ways, the information service of the Ministry of Economic Development and Poverty Reduction says.

“The Portal has given us stability in our client base and its needs, especially in the uncertain times of the pandemic, which allows us to plan and organize our long-term activities in a more effective manner. The presence on the portal helps reduce costs and direct resources towards company expansion, as a result of which we have created 25 new jobs”, Khabibulla Talibjanov, CEO of the Aziatskiy Mashinostroitelniy Zavod LLC, said.

He believes in the potential of localizing manufacturing in Uzbekistan and finds the portal to be a very effective tool in promoting market opportunities.

Khabibulla Talibjanov claims that the work with the Portal not only contributes to attracting new clients but plays a crucial role in the formation of key operational activities, such as the expansion of the product line, acquirement of new knowledge, as well as development of technology and innovations. The process of identifying the market demand and adjusting the production according to it has become considerably easier.

Search for new clients and transparency in signing contracts

This aspect is claimed to be of utmost importance for Alfiya Yuldasheva, Chief Accountant of Zabardast Mebel LLC. This enterprise has been working with the Portal since the very beginning. The head accountant remembers the challenge of looking for new customers, making time-consuming cold calls and commercial offers. Now that the company is featured on the platform, customers find the company themselves. Moreover, Portal’s support during the process of signing the contract makes the transaction easier and saves time. Alfiya Yuldasheva notes that thanks to the work with the Portal, the pandemic did not negatively affect the company’s efficiency. On the contrary, production volumes increased by 90%, as a result of which Zabardast Mebel LLC is actively considering expansion opportunities and sees great perspectives for the future.

The effectiveness of any cooperation platform is reflected in the achievements and satisfaction of its customers. In particular, an important criterion for assessing the Electronic Cooperation Portal, a digital trading platform created under the Ministry of Economic Development and Poverty Reduction, is the real experience of enterprises utilizing its capabilities.

The aim of the Portal (cooperation.uz) is to provide all interested parties with a unified gateway to the domestic industrial potential. Customers, in this case, businesses have an access to a wide range of goods produced by local manufacturers in a variety of sectors, from ready-to-sell products to raw materials and components. This allows businesses to minimize the challenge of establishing a reliable supply chain, which is one of the key elements for the success of virtually every business.

Helping companies through such an overwhelming and time-consuming process as building reliable partnerships allows them to invest their resources into other organizational processes and develop at a faster pace, as can be indicated by the examples of the achievements of the abovementioned enterprises.

The existence of the Portal, as a free trade zone, contributed to the uninterrupted activity and even increased efficiency for local entrepreneurs, considering the difficulties of maintaining partnerships under quarantine conditions. This is evidenced by the turnover indicators of the electronic Portal of 345 billion soums in September 2020.

Electronic Cooperation Portal as a valuable source of information for market analysis

From the experience of companies, it is important to note that they use the Portal not only as a means of forming a supply chain but also as a source of useful economic information. In the open access on the Portal, there is capacious information about the saturation or lack of certain goods on the market, about the need to develop specific industries in the regions of Uzbekistan, as well as research insights on the demand of import-substituting products that are recommended to produce. These data allow for more effective discovery of niche markets in Uzbekistan and are bound to incentivize the diversification of the product line of existing companies, along with the launch of production start-ups which ultimately affect the strength of the small business sector and the economy as a whole.

For the short period of operation since 2019, the Portal has won the trust of tens of thousands of local businesses, the number of which is growing every day. On average, 120 contracts are signed daily through the Portal for a total amount of transactions of over 7 billion soums.  

Such results indicate the great potential of the platform strengthening the cooperation relations between domestic producers, diversifying the local production, involving the small business sector in industrial projects, and overall developing the national economy.