Jahongir Abidovich Artykhodzhaev

Artikkhodjaev was born on January 2, 1975, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. He graduated from the Tashkent State University of Economics in 1996.

In the early 1990s, when he was 17 years old Artikkhodjaev opened his first company, Jahongir LLC; a hairdressers and a shoe shop. In 1994, Artikkhodjaev opened his first car service centre, and began selling aluminium profiles, the latter of which became a cornerstone of his subsequent business development.

In 2001, Artikkhodjaev founded the AKFA Company which started as a company for reselling imported profiles, in cooperation with the Turkish company Akpa. In 2010, the AKFA group of companies began the production of profiles for windows and doors in Tashkent.

In 2011, Artikkhodjaev founded the Artel Group to produce electronics and household appliances. The company was funded from capital from the success of AKFA, and started with a small factory in Tashkent. In the same year, the company partnered with international companies including Samsung, for whom Artel began producing vacuum cleaners in Nukus. The company has since become the largest manufacturer of household appliances and electronics in Central Asia.

In 2015, he was awarded the Order of Dustlik by the President of Uzbekistan.

Support for business

Artikkhodjaev has a pro-business stance, and has expressed a desire to turn Tashkent into the Business Capital of Central Asia. Between 2020 and 2021, it was reported that the number of businesses registered in the country increased by 80,914, or over 20% in comparison to June 2020.

A number of “Business Cities” are also under construction in Tashkent. These include the Yunusobad Business City and the Mirzo-Ulugbek Business City. An International Financial Center is expected to be built in Tashkent in the near future on the territory of UzExpoCentre. In 2021, the Government announced a plan to increase the area of retail space in Tashkent by 10 times, move heavy industry enterprises out of the city.

In 2019, Texnopark in Tashkent was developed to work with advanced technology, and now produces Samsung refrigerators.

Journalist controversy

On November 16, 2019, a doctored audio recording of a conversation appeared, in which Artikkhodjaev allegedly threatened the journalists appeared on the website of the publication Kun.uz.

According to this recording, which was subsequently found to be doctored, Artikkhodjaev threatened journalists with sudden "disappearance" in case of refusal to cooperate. Following investigation, the Mayor was cleared of any wrongdoing, although it was deemed that his words were rude and inappropriate.

Furthermore, KUN.uz's journalistic and editorial team were found to be in violation of the law both in the recording and of the distribution, naming the publication's journalistic and editorial team. The Prosecutor's Office noted that the recording was taken and distributed to create negative PR against the Khokim. “On November 16, 2019, an unknown person, in order to discredit the Khokim Jahongir Artikkhodjaev, distributed on social networks a recording lasting one and a half minutes (the meeting lasted two hours), edited from inappropriate words.”

Kun.Uz later published a correction in its article, admitting that the original recording was heavily edited and not representative of the conversation.