Uzbekistan ranks far below resource-rich nations in per-capita mineral wealth

Recently, international rankings of countries with the highest per-capita natural resource value were published. Saudi Arabia, which holds some of the world’s largest oil reserves, topped the list with natural resources worth $1 million per capita. Canada and Australia ranked second and third, each exceeding $700,000 per capita. Canada’s high figure is attributed to its oil, forest, and mineral wealth, while Australia holds major reserves of iron ore, coal, and gas. Russia ranked fourth, with natural resources valued at more than $520,000 per capita.

What about Uzbekistan?

Due to frequent changes in global commodity prices and ongoing geological exploration, determining an exact figure for Uzbekistan’s natural resource wealth is challenging. In July 2018, Azam Kodirkhodjayev, then deputy chair of the State Committee for Geology and Mineral Resources, stated that the country’s mineral raw material potential amounted to nearly $5.7 trillion.

Kodirkhodjayev noted that only a little over $1 trillion of that figure represented explored reserves and prepared deposits. He emphasized that only 20 percent of the country’s territory had been studied, meaning there remains substantial potential for new discoveries.

At a press conference in December 2023, Ilyos Jumayev, a department head at the Ministry of Mining Industry and Geology, reported that Uzbekistan has 101 registered gold deposits and 3 silver deposits.

“Uzbekistan has identified nearly all types of mineral resources known on Earth, including strategically important gold, silver, platinum group metals, copper, uranium, lead, molybdenum, tungsten, oil, natural gas, manganese, lithium, chromium, nickel, tin, tantalum, niobium, cobalt, scandium, germanium, and rhenium. Of the 101 gold and 3 silver deposits, most serve as the raw material base for the Navoi and Almalyk mining-metallurgical complexes. Ten copper deposits have been documented, with the main reserves located at the Oliy Ziyo, Sari-Cheku, and Qizata deposits in Tashkent region,” Jumayev said.

Speaking at the Tashkent International Investment Forum in June 2025, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev stated that Uzbekistan’s subsoil wealth is valued at $3 trillion.

“The Fourth Industrial Revolution is sharply increasing demand for ‘technological minerals’. Uzbekistan has large reserves of tungsten, molybdenum, magnesium, lithium, graphite, vanadium, titanium, and other resources. Overall, our subsoil wealth is estimated at $3 trillion. Our region has all the conditions to become a hub for producing high value-added products from minerals. In this regard, we are establishing the ‘Future Metals Technopark’ in the Tashkent and Samarkand regions,” the president said.

Based on these figures, if Uzbekistan’s $3 trillion natural resource potential is divided by its population of 38.244 million, the per-capita value amounts to approximately $78,000–79,000.