Tajikistan
Russia reopens diesel exports for 500,000 tonnes while a US licence runs to April
Russia’s government partly lifted its diesel export ban on Saturday, for 500,000 tonnes from 10 October, to carry out what Putin and Trump agreed by telephone on Friday. OFAC had licensed the sale, delivery and import of Russian-origin diesel the day before, through 7 April 2027. Neither document says whether the 500,000 tonnes stand beside or count against the duty-free balances under which Russian fuel reaches Kazakhstan.
Dushanbe takes fuel supply to the US envoy as Russia ships 73% of its oil products
Energy and water minister Daler Juma discussed the supply of Tajikistan’s domestic market with oil products with the US charge d’affaires in Dushanbe on Thursday, the ministry reported, without naming sources or volumes. Tajikistan imported 1.37 million tonnes of fuel and liquefied gas worth $1.13 billion in nine months, and Russia supplied 73.2 per cent of the oil-product bill, by Asia-Plus’s count.
CIS leaders sign 15 documents at Avaza and Azerbaijan is absent from the memory statement
Azerbaijan is not among the eight signatories of the statement on historical memory adopted at Avaza on Friday, by the Kremlin’s text, one of 15 documents signed as the Commonwealth’s 35th-anniversary council handed the chair to Uzbekistan from 1 January and heard Mirziyoyev invite the leaders to Bukhara next year and Aliyev offer to chair in 2028. Iran’s president sat in for the first time.
ADB grants Tajikistan $20.5 million to digitise pensions for 250,000 pensioners
The Asian Development Bank approved a $20.5 million grant on 2 October to modernise Tajikistan’s Agency of Social Insurance and Pension, $19.5 million of it from the Asian Development Fund and $1 million from the Japan-financed High-Level Technology Fund, by its release from Dushanbe. A new platform is to serve 320,000 contributors and 250,000 pensioners, and $12.32 million comes from ADB’s Middle East conflict package.
Six leaders sign two documents at Avaza as Tokayev counts 200 initiatives and few results
The eighth consultative meeting of Central Asia’s heads of state, the first with Azerbaijan as a full member, closed on Thursday with a joint statement and a decision on its own rules, and handed the 2027 chair to Baku. Tokayev told the five that more than 200 initiatives have been raised since 2018 and only a small part carried out, while Putin, Pezeshkian and Lukashenko landed for Friday’s CIS summit.
Four of the commission’s five members set the Syr Darya’s winter regime at Avaza
The Interstate Coordination Water Commission’s 95th session agreed water-withdrawal volumes and reservoir regimes for the 2026 to 2027 non-growing season on Wednesday, after Shardara received 3.69 billion cubic metres in the growing season, 840 million above forecast, by Kazakhstan’s water ministry as Kazinform carried it. The Turkmen chair’s readout and the Kazakh one name four delegations, and neither names Kyrgyzstan.
Avaza’s first day ends with four CIS decisions and no word on the Caspian ministers
The CIS foreign ministers signed four documents at Avaza on Wednesday, among them a decision making 2029 the Commonwealth’s transport year, and fixed their next council for Bishkek in April 2027. Listed for the same day in the host’s programme, the Caspian states’ ministers had no readout on Turkmenistan’s state portal, TDH, the foreign ministry’s site or News Central Asia by Thursday morning as the presidents landed.
Tajikistan’s visa waiver with Iran takes full effect at 30 days in every 90
The memorandum between the governments of Tajikistan and Iran on cancelling visas for holders of ordinary passports entered into force in full on 5 October 2026, Tajikistan’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday as Khovar carried it at 18:00. Citizens of either state may enter, transit or stay for up to 30 days in any 90-day period, through land crossings, international airports and air routes from third countries.
Moscow’s Afghanistan format ends with no statement as Overchuk reports trade up 2.5 times
The eighth round of the Moscow format consultations on Afghanistan ended on Monday without a final statement because the Afghan and Pakistani delegations could not agree a text, Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday, with the special envoys of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan at the table. Deputy prime minister Alexei Overchuk told foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi the same morning that trade had grown 2.5 times in seven months.
Tajikistan plans an 800 MW Hutalon dam between Rogun and Nurek at $2.25 billion
A new hydroelectric plant, Hutalon, is to be built on the Vakhsh between the Rogun plant upstream and Nurek downstream, with a design capacity of 800 MW and a preliminary cost of $2.247 billion, the energy and water resources ministry said after minister Daler Juma visited the site on 4 October, Asia-Plus reported on Monday.
Avaza’s week has a Caspian summit in one portal post and none in the programme
Turkmenistan’s state portal, turkmenistan.gov.tm, gives two accounts of the 3 days that open in Avaza on Wednesday. Its programme has the Caspian ministers on 7 October, the heads of state of Central Asia and Azerbaijan on 8 October and the CIS council on 9 October. Its post on Tokayev’s attendance adds a Caspian Ecological Summit, dated 9 October by an Ashgabat outlet that expects Putin and Pezeshkian.
Tajikistan’s lower house ratifies a second $300 million World Bank grant for Rogun
The Assembly of Representatives ratified on Thursday the financing agreement with the International Development Association for the first phase of Rogun’s sustainable financing, a $300 million grant the World Bank’s board approved on 30 June, Asia-Plus reported on Friday. With the first grant of $350 million the IDA’s money for the plant reaches $650 million, against about $5.8 billion that S&P put on the remaining work in August.
Afghanistan takes two thirds of Tajik power exports before CASA-1000’s last link is built
Barqi Tojik told Afghanistan’s grid company in Dushanbe that it plans a 500 kV line and will consider sending more power, the Afghan side said. The energy ministry’s half-year figures show why Kabul is the one asking for more: of 1,045 million kWh exported from January to June, 702.7 million went to Afghanistan, for 283.9 million somoni. CASA-1000’s Afghan section is due by spring 2027.
Dushanbe and Moscow sign a Digmai tailings protocol and target 2.5 times the trade by 2030
The 22nd session of the Russia-Tajikistan intergovernmental commission in Dushanbe, chaired by Prime Minister Kohir Rasulzoda and Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, signed a protocol amending the Rosatom roadmap on the Digmai tailings and set a goal of multiplying trade 2.5 times by 2030 from $2.47 billion last year, Avesta and TASS reported on Thursday. Rahmon received Khusnullin, and oil-product supplies were among the subjects.
Russia caps cash roubles for 7 neighbours at 1 million a head and bans firms from carrying any
A decree Vladimir Putin signed on Tuesday bans anyone from carrying more than 1 million roubles in cash out of Russia into the other 4 members of the Eurasian Economic Union, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan or Uzbekistan. Companies and sole traders may carry none, with 3 exceptions. The $100,000 ceiling that had applied since April is gone, and cash above the limit is confiscated at the border.
The World Bank prices the corridor at $55 billion to 2040, with $30 billion of it beyond the track
A World Bank report published on Monday says the Trans-Caspian corridor’s development could triple its volumes, halve its travel times, add 3.3% to the 9 countries’ GDP and create 2 million jobs by 2040. The bill it attaches is at least $25 billion of physical infrastructure and an estimated $30 billion of enabling investment. With reforms, the Bank says, the volumes would quadruple.
Sughd expects €32 million from the EBRD for Khujand’s sewers and €70 million for Mastchoh’s water
The EBRD will finance the modernisation of Khujand’s sewerage system with €32 million under its Green Cities programme, the Sughd regional administration’s press service said after its chairman Rajab Ahmadzoda met the bank’s head of office in Tajikistan, Holger Wiefel. Design is complete and the main works are planned for 2027. A second project, €70 million for Mastchoh district’s water supply and irrigation, is also to start in 2027.
Five Years Ahead: the dawn that will come every dawn
Uzbekistan has approved 57.2 gigawatts of generating capacity for 2035. On Friday the region's grid showed what one new plant does to 4 countries before breakfast.
Russia locks away its fuel export data, and the region loses the numbers behind its diesel
Decree 686, published on Monday, bars anyone in Russia from publishing what its fuel exporters ship, to whom, at what price and through which port, plus refinery output and exchange sales of petrol and diesel. Companies may disclose their own figures; the government has 10 days to list the goods covered. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Mongolia, whose Russian diesel intake doubled in August, lose the exporter's side of the count.
Tajikistan asks for its first UN Security Council seat, for 2028 to 2029
Foreign minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin told the General Assembly on Saturday that Tajikistan has put its name forward as a non-permanent member of the Security Council for 2028 to 2029, the first candidacy in its history, Asia-Plus reported on Monday afternoon. The vote comes in June 2027, when Kyrgyzstan will be six months into the first Central Asian seat since Kazakhstan’s in 2017 to 2018.