METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES AND THE INDICATOR SYSTEM FOR EVALUATING ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT IN REGIONS

The article examines methodological approaches to assessing regional entrepreneurship development and proposes a structured indicator system, illustrated with verified official statistics from Uzbekistan. Building on the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) framework, the OECD entrepreneurship indicator programme and the Regional Entrepreneurship and Development Index (REDI), the study systematizes descriptive-statistical, composite-index and frontier-efficiency approaches to measuring entrepreneurial activity at the sub-national level. According to Uzbekistan's State Statistics Committee, the SME sector's share of GDP stood at 54.3% in 2024 but fell to 49.6% in the first half of 2025, while internet penetration rose from 76.6% in 2021 to 94.2% by mid-2025 — a divergence that motivates the six-dimensional indicator system proposed here, covering framework conditions, digital infrastructure, finance, human capital, entrepreneurial activity and outcomes. The proposed system offers a methodologically grounded basis for constructing a composite regional entrepreneurship development index.