ECONOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF SMALL BUSINESS LENDING

Uzbekistan set an ambitious goal to achieve the status of an upper-middle-income country by 2030, with the focus on growing a large and solid middle-class social stratum. The current reforms in Uzbekistan largely target the development of small businesses and private entrepreneurship (SME) as SMEs have the greatest potential for becoming a real basis for forming a middle class. Therefore, business policymaking is getting more focused on supporting SMEs in tackling their key issues, especially access to funding. This paper studies the existing problems in ensuring lending instruments for SMEs and examines the effect of bank lending in SME sector growth in Uzbekistan. The OLS analysis showed that bank lending to SMEs stimulates the growth of SMEs’ share in economy to significant extent