The figures, reviewed at an extended government meeting and relayed by The Times of Central Asia on Tuesday: transport and communications up 10.4%, trade 8.5%, services 8.4%, construction 6.7%, industry 2.7%, agriculture 2%. Retail turnover rose 10.1%, foreign trade 7.5%. Capital investment reached 18.6 billion manats, $5.3 billion in TCA’s conversion, with 45.1% going to production facilities and the rest to social and cultural construction.
On the official series, 6.3% puts Turkmenistan ahead of Kazakhstan’s 4.1% for the half-year and behind Kyrgyzstan’s 11.9%, Uzbekistan’s 8.5% and Tajikistan’s 8.2%. The standing caveat does the real work: the IMF’s 2026 projection for the country is 2.4%, and the fund states that it uses its own GDP estimates because the official narrative “is difficult to reconcile with other available data”.