BARRIERS TO PRIVATE SECTOR GREEN BOND ISSUANCE IN UZBEKISTAN'S CAPITAL MARKET: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS WITH KAZAKHSTAN

Uzbekistan has built much of the policy architecture for a green finance market, including a National Green Economy Taxonomy and a track record of sovereign green and SDG linked Eurobonds dating back to 2021. Despite this, private sector green bond issuance has remained marginal, with only one small corporate green bond issued domestically as of 2024. Kazakhstan, which adopted its own green taxonomy around the same period, has instead developed a private and quasi private green bond market worth close to three billion dollars. This paper asks why that gap exists and what would close it. Using a comparative case study built on official sources from both countries, including government ministries, stock exchanges and United Nations agencies, the paper examines four areas where the two markets diverge, regulatory and verification support, the depth of the domestic institutional investor base, the presence or absence of targeted financial incentives, and the potential to refinance existing renewable energy assets through green debt. The findings suggest Uzbekistan's barrier is less a missing policy than a sequencing problem, with taxonomy and sovereign issuance built well ahead of the market infrastructure needed to support private issuers. The paper closes with three targeted recommendations for narrowing that gap.