Publication Details
Abstract
The article is devoted to the assessment of investment risks in sustainable development of small business and private entrepreneurshipin Kashkadarya region of Uzbekistan. While small businesses are crucial for financing big enterprises, securing better regional employment, and socio-economic stability, they have been constrained by factors like lack of access to finances, uneven markets, and institutional barriers. It says this fills the gap in our knowledge of how the variance in sectors and risk of transferring business to another country impacts sustainability in various industries. It used a mixed-method approach, with statistical, economic-mathematical, and regression modeling, and qualitative and quantitative methods, such as surveys and experts interviews. The study analyzed 10-year trends in activity and viability levels of small enterprises, by industry, using 2014–2024 data. Key findings are consistent with regional business performance being adversely affected by differences between sectors, with a one percent lower sectoral imbalance leading to a 0.99 % higher total activity. It emerged that, trade and industrial sectors exert strongest positive effect on Regional Small business sustainability (coefficients 0.23 and 0.21 respectively). In addition, the results of the regression show that every increase of one percent in sectoral dispersion in viability causes a reduction of 0.35% in the overall survival rate. This suggests that equitable growth between sectors, risk management, and diversification are critical to enhancing business resilience. Policy relevance: We present a quantitative metric and framework to increase investment risks transparency through place-sensitive approaches to support inclusive and sustainable small business development at the regional scale. Research in the future should explore how a regional entrepreneurship ecosystem may exploit financial innovation and digital tools to coordinate investment risk and efficiency, thus bolstering competitiveness.