TASHKENT — A Chinese mining venture has discovered 4 tonnes of gold reserves across a 200-hectare site at the Urusay deposit in Karakalpakstan’s Karauzyak district, following a $33 million capital and technological investment. Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev announced the discovery during a regional development summit in Nukus.
The operation has already generated 320 local jobs. Mirziyoyev directed regional authorities to address outstanding investor inquiries within 30 days and scale operations into a full gold mining and processing cluster targeting 1,000 workers. Emphasizing that comprehensive geological surveys currently cover just 20% of Karakalpakstan, the president called for an aggressive regional exploration initiative to properly catalogue untapped mineral reserves as foreign interest accelerates.
Beyond gold, Mirziyoyev pointed to several high-value industrial projects aimed at modernizing the region’s extraction sector:
Beruni District Quartzite: A German enterprise has invested $30 million to launch crystalline silicon manufacturing, targeting $25 million in annual exports. The material currently trades globally at approximately $5,500 per tonne.
Kungrad District Technical Salt: The Borsa Kelmas deposit currently ships 1 million tonnes of raw technical salt annually, leaving significant room for domestic value-added processing.
Bozatau District Mineral Salts: Exploitation of the Kuskanatau deposit offers capacity to process mirabilite into 45,000 tonnes of sodium sulfate per year, alongside astrakhanite refinement for industrial magnesium sulfate output.
