REASSESSING CORPORATE FINANCIAL STABILITY IN THE CONTEXT OF SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC GROWTH: A COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF ASSESSMENT METHODS AND THEIR APPLICABILITY TO TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMPANIES

In the context of sustainable economic growth, corporate financial stability requires a broader assessment than reliance solely on balance-sheet ratios at the reporting date. It also reflects a company's ability to service debt from operating cash flows, finance growth while maintaining a sustainable level of leverage, and remain resilient to macroeconomic fluctuations. This article evaluates the principal methods of financial stability assessment against these requirements, with particular attention to capital-intensive telecommunications companies. Based on a structured review of studies published primarily between 2007 and 2024 and a criteriabased comparative evaluation of eight groups of methods against six criteria, the study identifies opportunities for further methodological development. Ratio analysis, absolute indicators, discriminant models, and rating models used in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) predominantly rely on static measures and provide relatively limited coverage of cash flows, sector-specific characteristics, and currency and interestrate risks; some also employ weights calibrated using data from other economies. Statistical and machinelearning-based financial distress models, in turn, depend on sufficiently comprehensive historical datasets on corporate financial distress and failure events, the availability of which can be further developed in the context of Uzbekistan. Cash-flow and debt-service approaches and composite index methods demonstrate comparatively broader alignment with the selected assessment criteria, although their integrated application remains relatively limited. The article proposes an author-defined concept of financial stability in the context of sustainable economic growth and a six-block indicator framework encompassing capital structure, liquidity, cash flow and debt service, profitability, sector-specific operational efficiency, and macroeconomic risk sensitivity. The proposed framework provides a methodological basis for constructing an integral financial stability index for telecommunications companies, including Uztelecom JSC.