Reversal of the Project-Size Gradient in Bank Financing of Regional Industrial Investment: Evidence from Navoi Region (Uzbekistan) and a Transferable Diagnostic for Programme-Based Financing

Using records of 1,904 industrial projects of the Regional Investment Programme of Navoi region (2017-2025), the paper estimates how the probability of attracting a bank loan varies with project cost across periods, sectors and districts. Period-specific logit models and a cross-validated gradient boosting classifier show that in 2017-2018 the probability of bank participation increased with project size, whereas in 2022-2025 the relationship reversed. The author proposes a four-step size-gradient diagnostic that can be applied to programme registries in other sectors.