Download or read book Uzbekistan on the Threshold of the Twenty-first Century written by I. A. Karimov and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 1998 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new study by the President of Uzbekistan focuses on the country's special opportunities and challenges as it faces the 21st century. From the mid-19th century onwards, the people of Uzbekistan were under the yoke of Tsarist Russia, and later under the yoke of the Soviet Communist Empire, which made this land of unique natural and mineral resources a mere raw-material appendix. Fortunately, Uzbekistan has a huge potential for the establishment and successful development of foreign economic relations for an active participation in global economic relations. One of these potentials lies in the specific geostrategic situation of the country, which can be a bridge between the West and East. Other potentials are the valuable and needed mineral resources, the agricultural products and the advance economic, manufacturing and social infrastructure.