EnglishOn 1 September 1991, Uzbekistan was home to 20.6 million people. Today there are more than 38 million. Two generations have grown up since — people who never saw the Soviet Union.
On 29 December that year, 98.3 percent of voters backed independence in a referendum. Here is how the next 35 years went, told in numbers.
More people, living longer
The population grew from 20.6 to 38.24 million — an increase of almost 17.6 million. But this is not only about birth rates. Life expectancy rose from 66.4 to 75.4 years: nine extra years for every person.
Education widened alongside it. In 1991 there were 337,400 university students; today there are more than 1,535,000, almost 4.6 times as many. The number of universities itself went from 41 to 215.
The most striking change, though, sits in a different figure: the poverty rate fell from 35 to 5.8 percent.
A completely different economy
GDP reached 1,849.7 trillion soums in 2025 — roughly $147.1 billion, growing 7.7 percent over the year.
How far the country has opened up shows best in exports. In 1991 Uzbekistan sold $1.8 billion worth of goods abroad; in 2025 the figure was $33.8 billion. Almost nineteen times more.
Everyday life, meanwhile, was reshaped by the internet. In 2000 just 0.48 percent of the population used it; today 32.7 million people are online, or 89 percent. Within a single generation the internet went from a luxury to a utility.
People acquired things worth keeping
The clearest change is parked on the street. Individuals own 4.9 million registered vehicles, 4.55 million of them passenger cars — roughly one car for every eight people. In 1991 a private car was an event for the whole family.
Borders opened too. In 2025 citizens travelled abroad 7.6 million times, 22.2 percent more than the year before. Kyrgyzstan was the most common destination with 3.3 million trips, while Saudi Arabia drew 366,200 trips, mostly for umrah and hajj.
Housing grew as well: 238,000 residential units were built in 2025 alone.
Protection changed along with everything else
An insurance market grows only after people have something worth protecting. Its history therefore shows the country's prosperity from another angle.
In the early 1990s the market was effectively a state monopoly: insurance came from a single organisation. On 6 May 1993 the first national insurance law was adopted, and it was that law which opened the door to competition. Five years later, in 1998, today's EUROASIA Insurance started out under the name Toshkent Sug'urta. In 2002 a new law on insurance activity set capital requirements for insurers for the first time.
Insurance became a mass product on 22 October 2008, the day compulsory motor third-party liability cover came into force.
The decade that followed was about digitisation. In 2020 the electronic motor policy was formally introduced, and from 1 July 2022 every class of insurance could be issued electronically. Queues and paper forms ended there.
The result shows in the 2025 figures: 36 insurers on the market, 13.5 trillion soums in premiums collected, and 13.1 million active contracts. Insurance as a share of GDP rose from 0.4 percent in 2020 to 0.97 percent — more than doubling in five years.
Of those contracts, 6.14 million were new motor liability policies. The sum insured under a single policy now stands at 80 million soums.
Thirty-five years on
Put three numbers side by side: 38 million people, 4.9 million cars, 7.6 million trips abroad. Thirty-five years ago that list looked nothing like this.
As prosperity grows, so does the cost of losing it. That is what insurance is for — an ordinary precaution, like a locked door, no more and no less.
More on the types of cover in our full guide; every product is here.
Happy Independence Day.
