The International Monetary Fund expects Uzbekistan"s economy to grow almost 7% this year, while the pace may slow down to 6% in 2022, the IMF said on Friday following meetings with the ex-Soviet country"s authorities. It said inflation has remained elevated due to food and commodity price pressures, reflecting global trends, and is expected to end the year at about 10%. Central Asia"s most-populous economy of more than 32 million, Uzbekistan is a large producer of gas, gold and cotton. The IMF said Uzbekistan has weathered the pandemic relatively well, and a strong economic recovery is underway. "Uncertainty remains high, however, and an intensification of the pandemic, as new variants of the virus emerge, poses a large downside risk," it said. Uzbekistan could also be adversely affected by slower growth in its main trading partners, volatility in commodity prices, particularly of gold, or global price increases, it added. Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Andrea Ricci Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.