Uzbekistan: The Only Corridor Still Growing — and Now It Has a Treaty

On 3 July 2026, the President of Uzbekistan visited Tbilisi and signed a strategic partnership declaration with Georgia, covering economy, ICT, and tourism. The pact formalises a relationship that — at least in the car trade — has been quietly building for years.

The Geostat trade data for HS 8703 (motor cars) tells the story. Uzbekistan has gone from irrelevance to a meaningful destination in three years:

| Year | Units exported | USD value | YoY growth (units) |

|------|---------------|-----------|-------------------|

| 2023 | 121 | $2.7M | — |

| 2024 | 442 | $14.7M | +265% |

| 2025 | 2,658 | $77.5M | +501% |

| 2026-YTD¹ | 874 | $18.0M | On pace |

¹ 2026-YTD covers approximately the first three months of 2026. Full-year totals will be higher.

That is a 22× increase from 2023 to 2025 — and the 2026 partial-year figure (874 units) suggests the momentum is holding rather than reversing.

The honest framing requires acknowledging the scale gap. In 2025, Kazakhstan absorbed 44,767 motor cars from Georgia; Uzbekistan absorbed 2,658. That makes Uzbekistan roughly 1/17th of Kazakhstan's volume.

| Destination | 2025 units | 2026-YTD units | Share of 2025 total |

|-------------|-----------|---------------|-------------------|

| Kazakhstan | 44,767 | 10,439 | 36.4% |

| Kyrgyzstan | 40,861 | 8,524 | 33.2% |

| Uzbekistan | 2,658 | 874 | 2.2% |

| Azerbaijan | 7,814 | 1,926 | 6.4% |

| Armenia | 2,682 | 1,150 | 2.2% |

Uzbekistan is not replacing Kazakhstan's volume — it cannot, at this size. The 2026 corridor contraction (Kazakhstan down from 44,767 to a 10,439 partial-year pace; Kyrgyzstan from 40,861 to 8,524) represents tens of thousands of lost units. Uzbekistan's growth from 2,658 to an 874 partial-year pace adds hundreds, not tens of thousands.

The strategic partnership declaration is a policy framework, not a trade agreement with quotas or tariff preferences. What it does is create the institutional infrastructure — diplomatic coordination, transport cooperation, customs dialogue — that allows trade to grow without friction. The growth was already happening before the treaty; the treaty formalises the political will to sustain it.

The precise mechanisms by which Uzbekistan-bound vehicles reach their destination — whether through the Caspian ferry, overland via Kazakhstan, or other routes — are beyond what the trade-flow data can tell us. What we can observe is the destination registering on Georgia's export declarations, and growing rapidly.

Uzbekistan's value to Georgia's re-export sector is not its current volume but its trajectory. Every other major destination is shrinking. Azerbaijan fell from 22,393 (2023) to 1,926 (2026-YTD). Armenia collapsed from 17,338 to 1,150. Even Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the two giants, are on a downward 2026 pace.

Uzbekistan is the only line on the chart still pointing up. But its rank still trails the shrinking corridors: on the 2026 partial-year tally it sits at 874 units, behind Iran (2,519), Azerbaijan (1,926) and Armenia (1,150). The distinction is trajectory, not standing — Azerbaijan and Armenia are large only because of legacy volume that is collapsing, while Uzbekistan is building from the bottom up. If its pace holds — 874 units in roughly the first quarter extrapolates to 3,500+ for the full year — Uzbekistan would close on Armenia's declining full-year pace and cement itself as the corridor most likely to keep growing into 2027, even as it remains far behind the giants in absolute volume.

That is a projection, not a prediction. The partnership may accelerate growth, or headwinds (competition from Chinese direct exports, domestic Uzbek market changes) may slow it. But the pre-treaty trajectory was already the strongest in Georgia's corridor map.

• Source: Geostat External Trade, HS code 8703 (Motor cars), by destination country. Data retrieved via the Geostat interactive external trade portal (ex-trade.geostat.ge), July 2026.
• Data files: docs/research/Export-HS8703-by-country_Units.json and docs/research/Export-HS8703-by-country_USD.json.
• 2026-YTD caveat: The 2026 figure is a partial-year snapshot (approximately January through March/April). We do not annualize; the extrapolation in the final paragraph is explicitly flagged as a projection.
• Partnership declaration: Civil Georgia, "Uzbekistan President Visits Tbilisi, Signs Strategic Partnership Agreement with Georgia" (2026-07-03).
• Scale comparison: All 2025 and 2026-YTD figures are from the same Geostat HS 8703 pull, ensuring comparability.