Construction is one of the main factors stimulating economic growth in both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Last year, this sector contributed 7.3% to GDP in Uzbekistan and 6.2% in Kazakhstan. Although the development of the construction industry in both countries shares many similarities, there are also significant differences that can be analyzed based on data from national statistical committees by comparing indicators for housing and non-residential construction.
When looking at housing construction, it is evident that Kazakhstan builds a larger volume of housing, and this advantage has been maintained for several years. If the difference between the two countries was 2.4 million square meters in 2020 (15.3 million in Kazakhstan versus 12.9 million in Uzbekistan), it increased to 4.3 million sq. m by 2024. In 2025, the Kazakh market continued to widen the gap, reaching 4.4 million sq. m. By the end of the first half of 2026, 8.5 million sq. m of housing were commissioned in Kazakhstan, compared to 7.7 million sq. m in Uzbekistan.
Considering different demographic features and, consequently, varying needs for new housing, it is useful to look at per capita indicators. In January-June of the current year, 412.2 sq. m of housing were commissioned per thousand people in Kazakhstan, while in Uzbekistan, this figure was half as low—200.7 sq. m per thousand people.
Housing construction rates show that Uzbekistan has begun to overtake Kazakhstan. After a three-year decline in 2025, the volume of housing construction in Uzbekistan grew by 7.2%. In the first half of 2026, the growth was also 7.2%, exceeding the rate in Kazakhstan for the same period (plus 6.7%). Nevertheless, this is not the highest indicator for Kazakhstan; according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics of ASPiR Kazakhstan, the maximum indicator in recent years was reached in 2020 at 16.8%, after which the trend became erratic.
Comparing absolute volumes and their dynamics, it can be concluded that the construction markets of the two countries are at different stages of development. The Kazakh market, having an initially larger base of housing input, demonstrates more inertial growth, while in Uzbekistan, despite smaller volumes, the growth rates remain consistently high, which is typical of actively developing markets.
When analyzing the entire construction sector, comparison is possible through the index of physical volume of completed construction works. Over recent years, this index has been consistently higher in Kazakhstan. After an expected slump in 2021 due to the 'coronavirus crisis', Kazakhstan observed a steady increase in rates until 2025: the physical volume index of construction works rose from 108.3% to 117.5%. The situation in Uzbekistan was similar: from the figures of 2021 and 2022 (106.8% and 106.6% respectively), the index in the sector rose to 114.2% by 2025.
In the first half of 2026, the situation in the two countries changed. In Kazakhstan, the physical volume index decreased compared to the first half of 2025, from 118.4% to 115.2%, while in Uzbekistan, this indicator, conversely, increased by 3 percentage points, reaching 113.8%.
Value data are presented in national currencies, so for comparison, data for the first half of 2026 were converted into US dollars. The difference turned out to be almost twofold: in Uzbekistan, during January-June of the current year, works worth a total of 192 trillion soms were performed, equivalent to 16.1 billion US dollars. In Kazakhstan, the construction volume reached 4.1 trillion tenge, or 8.6 billion US dollars. Thus, the capacity of the Uzbek construction market is almost twice that of the Kazakh market.
Given the significantly larger volume of housing commissioned in Kazakhstan, the structures of the construction industries of both countries differ noticeably. Since a direct comparison of structural data from RK and RU is difficult due to the different format of statistics provision, figures for 2025 are provided in their original form.
The structure of the Kazakh construction industry includes residential buildings worth 1.7 trillion tenge (15.7% share), non-residential buildings—3.3 trillion tenge (31% share), and structures—5.7 trillion tenge (53.3% share). The structure of the Uzbek construction industry includes buildings and structures worth 218 trillion soms (69.7% share), civil engineering objects—64.9 trillion soms (20.7% share), and specialized construction works—30.2 trillion soms (9.6% share).
Differences in market scale are also visible in the indicator of fixed capital investment. When converting absolute values using the average exchange rate of 2025, 42.2 trillion soms were invested in the construction sector (excluding work in other branches of the economy) in Uzbekistan last year, equivalent to 3.4 billion US dollars. In Kazakhstan, the amount of capital investment in the sector for the same period amounted to 150.5 billion tenge, or 311.2 million US dollars.
Investment dynamics also differ. In Uzbekistan, sharp jumps were recorded in 2020 and 2024, when capital investments nearly doubled, while the overall trend of these years showed stable growth. The picture is different in Kazakhstan: the largest volume of investment in construction was recorded in 2022 (223.2 billion tenge), followed by a sharp drop to 129.4 billion tenge. Growth in 2024 and 2025 did not reach the record level of 2022.
Statistical agencies of both countries provide data on construction works by enterprise size, allowing for a comparison of the share of large and small contractors. As in Kazakhstan, small construction companies carry out the largest volumes in both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. However, in Kazakhstan, the share of small construction organizations has steadily increased over the last three years: from 51% in 2023 to 61.1% in 2025. In Uzbekistan, the share of small and micro-firms has been decreasing since 2022: from 52.6% to 47.7%.
The share of large contractors in Uzbekistan has changed slightly, fluctuating between 21% and 28.5%, and stabilized at 26.4% last year. In Kazakhstan, the share of large contractors decreased from 33.4% to 17.1% during the reporting period. A possible reason for this decrease could be business fragmentation: the share of medium-sized enterprises increased from 16% to 21.8%. It should be noted that official data on large contractors may not reflect the full picture, as construction corporations often have numerous subsidiaries of medium and small tiers whose volumes statistically fall into other categories.
The key difference is that the National Committee of Statistics of Uzbekistan accounts for the volume of construction carried out by the shadow sector. At the end of last year, the share of the 'grey' construction market in Uzbekistan was 25.8%, whereas similar data is not published in Kazakhstan.
According to the National Statistical Committee of Uzbekistan, Uzbekistan's gross domestic product (GDP) reached 1,072.7 trillion soums at current prices during January to June 2026. This represents a real growth of 8.5% compared to the same period last year. It should be noted that the figures presented are preliminary and include results from statistical surveys assessing the unrecorded economy.
The volume of GDP in the first half showed stable growth over the last five years. It increased from 441.5 trillion soums in 2022 to 527.7 trillion in 2023, then reached 670.1 trillion in 2024, 900.7 trillion in 2025, and amounted to 1,072.7 trillion soums in 2026. Real growth rates during this period fluctuated between 104.5% and 108.5%, with the first half of 2026 marking the highest growth rate for the entire five-year period.
The GDP deflator index relative to prices in January–June 2025 was 109.8%. Statistics recorded the highest deflator values in the industry sector (113.1%), agriculture, forestry, and fisheries (111.6%), as well as in other service sectors (111.5%). In sectors such as transport, storage, information and communications (103.2%), construction (105.6%), and trade, hospitality, and food services (106.2%), the deflators were below the national average level.
The main driver of growth was the gross value added across all economic sectors, which reached 1,027.6 trillion soums (95.8% of GDP). This figure demonstrated an 8.5% growth, contributing 8.1 percentage points to the overall GDP increase. Net taxes on products amounted to 45.0 trillion soums (4.2% of GDP), increasing by 8.3% and adding another 0.4 percentage points.
Economic activity indicators were distributed as follows: agriculture, forestry, and fisheries—154.3 trillion soums, growing by 4.7% (contribution of 0.7 pp.); industry—272.6 trillion soums, growing by 8.0% (contribution of 2.0 pp.); construction—79.2 trillion soums, growing by 13.7% (contribution of 1.0 pp.); trade, hospitality, and food services—151.2 trillion soums, growing by 13.5% (contribution of 1.8 pp.); transport, storage, information and communications—88.0 trillion soums, growing by 18.6% (contribution of 1.5 pp.); other service sectors—282.4 trillion soums, growing by 4.1% (contribution of 1.1 pp.).
Compared to January–June 2025, the share of industry in the GDP structure increased from 25.9% to 26.5%, the share of the service sector decreased from 51.1% to 50.8%, and the share of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries decreased from 15.3% to 15.0%. The share of the construction sector remained unchanged at 7.7%.
The 4.7% growth in agriculture was mainly driven by forestry, which grew by 6.3%, and fisheries, which increased by 35.8%. In industry, added value reached 272.6 trillion soums, compared to 223.2 trillion a year earlier. The main driver was manufacturing, which expanded by 8.8% from 183.2 to 227.6 trillion soums. Mining and mineral extraction grew by 2.1% (to 27.2 trillion soums), electricity and gas supply increased by 7.9% (to 16.1 trillion soums), and water supply and waste management grew by 15.9% (to 1.7 trillion soums).
Added value in construction reached 79.2 trillion soums, which is 13.7% more. Within the sector, growth was shown by building and structures construction at 8.5%, civil engineering works at 21.5%, and specialized construction works sharply increased by 39.8%. This changed the internal structure of the sector: specialized works grew from 9.3% to 11.7%, and civil engineering works from 17.8% to 18.7%, while building construction decreased from 72.9% to 69.6%.
Total added value in the service sector amounted to 521.6 trillion soums, showing a growth of 9.2%. Retail and wholesale trade increased by 15.0%, hospitality and food services grew by 10.8%, transport and storage by 15.8%, information technology and communications by 23.2%, and other services by 4.1%. In trade, retail sales (excluding motor vehicles) accounted for the largest share at 42.7%, followed by wholesale trade (39.3%) and trade/repair of vehicles (18.0%). Transport and storage accounted for 5.3% of national GDP, with road transport being the largest share of added value in this sector (57.9%), followed by auxiliary transport services (17.7%), rail transport (8.4%), pipeline transport (8.1%), and air transport (7.9%).
GDP per capita in January–June 2026 reached 27,950.1 thousand soums, corresponding to a real growth of 6.6% compared to the same period in 2025. Over the five-year period, GDP per capita grew from 12,458.1 thousand soums in 2022 to the current level, with the real growth rate of GDP per capita accelerating from 102.4% in 2022 to 106.6% in 2026.
The share of information and communication technologies (ICT) services in the national economy increased to 2.9% compared to 2.8% in 2025 and 2.4% in 2024. The total volume of ICT grew to 30.3 trillion soums. Within ICT added value, computer programming, consulting, and related services accounted for the largest share (53.6%), followed by communication services (28.9%), data hosting/processing and web portals (10.5%), software publication (4.4%), and computer/communication equipment repair (2.6%).
Small business entities generated 518.7 trillion soums in added value, accounting for 50.5% of the total economic added value. In small business activities, services accounted for 48.0%, agriculture, forestry, and fisheries—28.4%, industry—11.9%, and construction—11.7%. By sector, small businesses held a share of up to 95.4% in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries; 76.9% in construction; 47.7% in services, and 22.7% in industry.
The gross value added of the unrecorded economy, including household and private sector activities, amounted to 245.5 trillion soums. Its share in GDP decreased to 22.9% from 26.1% in January–June 2025. Household and private sector activities provided 165.5 trillion soums (15.4% of GDP), while the shadow economy amounted to 80.0 trillion soums (7.5% of GDP). Among the sectors of unrecorded economic activity, agriculture, forestry, and fisheries accounted for the largest share (60.5%), followed by services (23.0%), construction (17.8%), and industry (6.7%).
