It is time for Central Asia to act as one player

Viktor Yelisseyev is President of the Advertising Association of Central Asia (AACA) and a media executive from Kazakhstan. He explains why Uzbekistan's market is living through a golden age, why the industry needs sharp arguments, and what keeps the region from speaking to the world in one voice.

The golden age of the Uzbek market

Uzbekistan is currently living through a genuine golden age for its communications industry. From Kazakhstan, the powerful economic surge next door is plain to see: Uzbekistan's GDP growth is running at almost twice the Kazakh rate. Advertising and communications always serve as the most precise litmus test of a broader upturn — wherever the economy and foreign investment grow, new brands, large-scale campaigns and an acute demand for promotion inevitably follow.

Targeted economic reforms and a smart policy for attracting foreign capital have delivered an enormous return. Kazakh companies are moving into this growing market in force: many are opening offices in Tashkent and launching joint projects.

For local professionals this is a historic chance to claim the key niches. But the ones who will stay ahead of the market are not those who have simply been in it the longest or can point to past credentials — they are the most agile companies, the ones able to decide quickly and adapt instantly to the trends the money is flowing into.

Open exchange: the AACA and Tribune.kz experience

A mature market cannot take shape without its own industry media infrastructure. In Kazakhstan that unifying role is played by Tribune.kz, a project created by the Advertising Association of Central Asia (AACA). We have built an active community around it, and we see steady interest from the Uzbek audience. Kazakhstan's expert community is fully open to deep media partnership with colleagues in Uzbekistan — sharing analytics, news coverage and investigative reporting.

Alongside media development, the industry needs a mature three-way dialogue between business, society and the state. Kazakhstan's experience shows that regulating the industry is no longer a top-down exercise. Today, industry associations and businesses sit alongside ministries as equals when high-profile legislative initiatives are debated — restrictions on advertising fast food and sugary products, for example.

Representatives of Uzbekistan are also actively shaping the international agenda at the level of the CIS Coordination Council, signing industry codes and memoranda. The emergence of private industry initiatives and independent media platforms in Tashkent is an important sign that the market is waking up and taking responsibility for its own future.

The power of a sharp argument, and moving from theory to action

The main engine of professional progress is open pluralism. A healthy industry has no use for tidy discussions where everyone faces the same direction and repeats the same lines. When a meeting produces no difference of opinion, the discussion becomes a pointless monologue. The ideas that genuinely work and genuinely change a market are born only in sharp arguments and the clash of opposing views.

Another important shift underway in Uzbekistan's professional community is the move from accumulating knowledge to acting on it. The market no longer suffers from a shortage of information or theory. It is time to stop reading endlessly and start doing.

Uzbekistan already has enormous creative potential: Uzbek designers, agencies and production studios deliver world-class work and win confidently at international festivals such as Red Jolbors. Across the regional media landscape, Uzbekistan's successes resonate and spur a healthy professional envy among colleagues in Kazakhstan. That is an excellent stimulus for growth on both sides.

From competition to synergy

A dynamic rivalry for regional leadership is now playing out between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The job of the expert community, however, is not to sharpen knives or compare trophies, but to turn that competition into synergy and mutual support. On the scale of the global economy, no single Central Asian country is a major independent player in its own right, and each neighbour has different strengths:

• Kazakhstan. The economy leans heavily on the commodities sector, but the market went through industry self-regulation earlier and has built a working dialogue with the state.
• Uzbekistan. A powerful leap forward in development, manufacturing and agriculture, vast human capital and a rising flow of foreign investment.
• The region together. Combined interests, investment potential and shared media infrastructure deliver what none of them has alone — weight in the global conversation.

If we keep developing in isolation, we will remain local markets. But if the countries of Central Asia unite their interests, the region will become a strong and influential global player.

Building these professional bridges, integrating business closely and working hand in hand with specialist institutions — in particular the Marketing Association of Uzbekistan — is the only pragmatic path to making Central Asia a single centre of gravity for global brands and investment.