As Sri Lanka rolls out its state owned enterprise (SOE) reforms, it can learn from the Uzbekistan Government’s SOE reforms, which involved the divestment of a portion of its minority stakes through a bundled or pooled vehicle by launching an initial public offering (IPO), Asia Frontier Capital Co-Fund Manager Ruchir Desai said, yesterday (3) at a press conference held in Colombo.
Speaking at Capital Alliance’s (CAL) formal announcement of its acquisition of a 51% stake in Hong-Kong based Fund Manager – Asia Frontier Capital (AFC), Desai urged Sri Lanka to look towards the Uzbek Government’s fund, namely the National Investment Fund of Uzbekistan (UzNIF).
The fund has since been listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and the Tashkent Republican Stock Exchange (Toshkent/RSE).
“Sri Lanka keeps talking about SOE reforms, Uzbekistan is actually doing its own SOE reforms. I’ve heard for the last few years about the Government over here wanting to do SOE reform, so they can look at the Uzbekistan model to unlock that value, and unlock growth,” Desai said.
According to AFC’s statements published online, as an emerging-market fund manager, the Uzbekistan Fund invests in listed equities across several sectors in the Central Asian nation.
S&P Global and reports of EuroNews note that the UzNIF had a net asset Value (NAV) of roughly around $ 2.44 billion at the end of 2025, with a valuation of roughly around $ 1.95 billion at the time of IPO. With the reform roll out, the government divested a 31% stake in UzNIF, raising $ 604 million.
At present, the UzNIF is managed by global asset management firm Franklin Templeton, while the Uzbek State remains the controlling shareholder of the SOEs, holding the majority stake, with UzNIF holding minority equity.
“Uzbekistan is allowing itself to achieve ambitious growth, it has achieved more than 8% GDP growth so far this year. Sri Lanka can learn from that,” Desai continued.
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Uzbekistan’s real GDP growth rate for the full year of 2025 was 7.7%, and growth in the first quarter of 2026 reached 8.7%, in year-over-year terms. However, the multilateral also noted in a statement on a Consultation with the Republic in June, that Uzbekistan’s full-year growth rate for 2026 is to approximate at around 6.8%, and 6.0% in 2027.
Capital Alliance (CAL) Group CEO Kanishke Mannakkara, also noting the efforts of the Central Asian government’s dual listing said that the move resulted in top-down adherence to corporate governance, and in turn international investor interest.
“It resulted in better corporate governance all the way down, because when you force top-tier regulated corporate governance into SOEs, it creates global investor interest in the country, because everybody is now thinking about Uzbekistan because there is this liquid investable company offshore, and it also helps unlock capital for the country,” Mannakkara said.
On Monday (2), the Sri Lankan Government formally announced the initiation of its liquidation process for 33 selected loss-making SOEs, supervised by a dedicated SOE Reform Unit established under the Cabinet’s approval.