Uzbekistan has set up a special legal panel for investment and competition issues in a bid to improve the country’s investment climate and regain foreign investors’ trust after more than two decades of economic isolation that kept foreign private businesses at a distance.

Major foreign investors, whose investment worth at least $20 million, can address the panel to resolve their disputes with the state agencies on investment issues as a first instance court, the Supreme Court said.

Other investment disputes can be considered at district and regional courts if investors wish so, the court said adding that Uzbekistan’s economic courts heard 83 disputes related to investment activities last year and 38 cases in the first two months of this year.

The panel was established under a decree issued by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who had made the attraction of foreign investors one of the top priorities of his ambitious reform agenda.