Tajikistan
Friday’s Syrdarya trip reached Bishkek and Tajikistan as well: two districts of the Kyrgyz capital were dark until 09:24 while Tajikistan’s grid steadied in minutes
The dawn trip at Uzbekistan’s new Syrdarya plant, which took 1,600 MW off the Uzbek grid at 05:05 Tashkent time and split Kazakhstan’s north-south transit, also cut power in the Pervomaisky and Sverdlovsky districts of Bishkek for two to three and a half hours and set off the emergency automation in Tajikistan, the Kyrgyz operator and the Tajik ministry said on Friday. Kyrgyzstan’s National Electric Networks restored the city centre at about 08:15 and the microdistricts from about 09:24 Bishkek time; Tajikistan’s energy ministry said its system steadied “within minutes” and works normally, and that the cause is being established with the dispatch centre Energia and the neighbouring systems.
Turkmenistan shuts its airspace to Iranian airlines, Tehran’s aviation authority says: the Dushanbe flights now go round through Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
A Varesh Airlines flight from Tehran to Dushanbe turned back on Thursday after 1 hour and 8 minutes in the air when Turkmenistan refused it passage through its airspace, the airline’s Dushanbe office told Asia-Plus, which published the account at 09:21 on Friday; the aircraft returned to Imam Khomeini airport and later flew the route through the airspace of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and the Mashhad to Dushanbe service will take the same way round. Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization said on Thursday that Turkmenistan had refused Iranian airlines transit permits, its spokesman Majid Akhavan quoted by Iran International and relayed by News.az at 15:26; the airline tied the refusal to the sanctions on Iran the United States announced recently. No statement from Ashgabat had appeared on the state portal or on TDH by Friday morning.
Tajikistan’s industry grows 13.8% in 8 months to 45.37 billion somoni and its trade 37.2%, with imports running at 3.7 times exports
Industrial output in Tajikistan reached 45.37 billion somoni in January to August, 13.8% more than a year earlier, the Statistics Agency under the President reported on Thursday through Avesta: processing up 23%, electricity, gas and steam up 19.3%, water and waste up 17.2%. Foreign trade rose 37.2% to $9.23 billion, exports of $1.97 billion against imports of $7.26 billion; freight carried rose 15.2% to 113.7 million tonnes; retail trade grew 30.6% and the services of restaurants, cafes and canteens 61.2%.
The ADB and the EBRD publish their autumn forecasts a day apart: Central Asia and Mongolia grow 5.8% on one count while the Caucasus slips on the other
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development put Central Asia and Mongolia at 5.8% growth in 2026 and 5.3% in 2027 in its Regional Economic Prospects published on Thursday: Kyrgyzstan 8.7% this year, Tajikistan 7.9%, Uzbekistan 7.5%, Mongolia and Turkmenistan 6.3%, Kazakhstan 4.7%. The Asian Development Bank’s September Outlook, published on Wednesday, raised Uzbekistan to 7.0% from 6.7% after an 8.5% first half and Georgia to 6.3% from 5.5%, cut Tajikistan to 7.0% from 7.3% and Azerbaijan to 1.6% from 2.0%, and left Kazakhstan at 4.8%, Kyrgyzstan at 8.9%, Turkmenistan at 6.3%, Armenia at 5.0% and Mongolia at 5.7%. Its subregion, the Caucasus and Central and West Asia, slips to 3.7% for 2026 and 4.1% for 2027, a tenth of a point down on July on both years.
Diesel in Dushanbe falls 6% as Russian deliveries triple, while petrol rises 7.4% and liquefied gas 18% in 3 weeks
AI-92 petrol in Dushanbe costs about 14.50 somoni a litre against 13.50 at the end of August, liquefied gas 6.70 against 5.70 and diesel 15.50 against 16.50, Asia-Plus reported on Wednesday: petrol up about 7.4% in under a month, gas up about 18%, diesel down about 6%. The diesel fall follows Russia’s August deliveries of more than 56,000 tonnes against about 16,000 in July, a 3.5-fold rise; the reasons the authorities have given for the petrol rise are the world market, export restrictions in producing countries and transport costs.
Russia’s diesel to 4 buyers in Central Asia and Mongolia doubled in August to 370,000 tonnes, with Mongolia taking 215,000 and Kyrgyzstan’s intake rising from 4,400 to 72,000
Russian diesel exports to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Mongolia exceeded 370,000 tonnes in August, more than double July’s, traders told Reuters on Monday in figures Neftegaz.ru carried the same evening and Asia-Plus on Tuesday. Mongolia took about 215,000 tonnes against 124,000 in July, Kyrgyzstan more than 72,000 against 4,400, Tajikistan more than 56,000 against 16,000, and Kazakhstan, which imported none in July, about 28,000. Over January to August Russia sent 2.5 million tonnes of diesel to Central Asia and Afghanistan, against 2.6 million a year earlier.
Five Years Ahead: Tajikistan graduates from grants with a dam unfinished and a bond falling due
The World Bank has decided Dushanbe is too well off for free money. The decision lands with the state’s debt at 16% of output, its largest project years from finished and its only market bond in its last year of repayment.
Dushanbe and the CNPC venture discuss the China gas pipeline again, 12 years after its Tajik section broke ground
Energy minister Daler Juma met the management of Trans-Tajik Gas Pipeline Company on 18 September to discuss “the progress of the project, related issues, ways to resolve them and further coordination”, Asia-Plus reported on Tuesday. The company, a joint venture of Tajiktransgaz and CNPC’s Trans-Asia Gas Pipeline, was founded in 2014 with $300 million from each side to build the 391-kilometre Tajik section of Line D of the Central Asia to China pipeline; construction began in September 2014.
Dushanbe’s tax bill triples the VAT threshold and taxes online shops at 3%, and 12 trades lose the simplified regime
Tajikistan’s government has sent parliament a package of Tax Code amendments that raises the turnover at which a business must register for VAT from 1 million to 3 million somoni, sets 3% as the simplified rate for firms between 2 and 3 million, puts a 3% turnover tax on online retail and removes construction, consulting, audit, medicines, markets and 7 other lines of business from the simplified regime altogether, Asia-Plus reported on Monday. The package arrives 10 days after the World Bank published a framework under which its grants to Dushanbe are expected to become credits from the fiscal year that began in July.
Tajikistan switches on a 250 MW solar plant in Sughd and orders 700 MW more for 2027
President Emomali Rahmon opened the Asht photovoltaic plant on Monday, 10 months after construction began, and told officials to build another 700 MW of solar capacity in the region next year, his press service said. Its account names the developer, Ayon Energy, and gives no cost, lender or tariff.
A night of 1,110 drones damages the Moscow refinery while Russia's diesel ban extension stays unpublished
Russia's defence ministry counted 1,110 drones shot down on the night of 19 to 20 September, and Moscow's mayor confirmed damage at the capital's refinery. For the Central Asian importers that buy on the same Russian market, the open item is a government resolution: the extension of the producers' diesel export ban has been reported since 16 September and published nowhere.
China's trade with Tajikistan reaches $1.78 billion in 6 months, a third more than Russia's
The two governments' commission met in Dushanbe on Friday and signed a protocol that lists sectors and no projects. Trade figures published with it put China's $1.78 billion for the first half of 2026 ahead of Russia's $1.32 billion.
The WMO writes the region's water year down: reservoirs below normal from Kyrgyzstan to Afghanistan, the Aral basin's rivers in decline, glaciers with one of their 3 worst years on record
The World Meteorological Organization's State of Global Water Resources 2025, published on Thursday, records inflows to the reservoirs of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan below or well below the 1991 to 2020 normal, a decline in flow across the Aral Sea basin, and the glacier balance of Central Asia in the year to September 2025 among the 3 most negative on record. Globally, 2021 to 2025 was one of the driest runs for river flow since observations began in 1991. Every water instrument the region has put on paper this month is priced to a river the report says is running short.
Nurek’s second phase would put $220 million of AIIB debt on Dushanbe’s books as the World Bank’s grants give way to credits
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s project list carries a proposed $220 million sovereign loan for the second phase of the Nurek plant’s rehabilitation, with a concept review dated 3 July and the World Bank and the Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development as co-financiers, Asia-Plus reported on Wednesday. The World Bank has paid for the second phase so far with grants, $50 million in 2020 and $65 million in 2021, and its new country framework turned grants into credits on 1 July.
Russia's refiners keep their diesel at home to the end of October, Vedomosti and RBC report; the intergovernmental exemption that feeds Dushanbe stands
The Russian government has decided to extend the export ban on diesel for producers to the end of October 2026, Interfax reported at 08:10 on Wednesday, citing Vedomosti and RBC on the outcome of Alexander Novak's meeting of 14 September. The ban was due to lapse on 30 September. No resolution has been published; Interfax carried the decision as media reports of the government's plans.
Seoul's declaration puts the summit on a 2-year clock with Astana next; the presidents' pitches ran from a Kyrgyz dam to a Turkmen gas plant
South Korea and the five Central Asian presidents adopted the Seoul Declaration on Wednesday: summits every 2 years, the second in Astana in 2028, a new industrial ministers' body under a supply-chain memorandum, and a Korea Desk inside each state's government structures to serve Korean companies. No sum appears in the presidential office's readout of the session. Sums came from the presidents at the business summit that followed: Tokayev's $19 billion of commercial agreements, Berdimuhamedov's 17 projects with Korean companies worth over $12 billion, Japarov's 10 business documents with the sums undisclosed.
Seoul's summit week reaches its declaration with five different baskets on the table
The first Korea-Central Asia summit sits in Seoul on Wednesday with a Seoul Declaration on supply chains and future industries to adopt. The week of bilateral talks that led to it shows what each capital came for: Kazakhstan a status upgrade and $19 billion of commercial agreements, Uzbekistan a $12 billion portfolio, Turkmenistan a named contractor for its canal, Tajikistan 17 documents with one railway agreement among them, Kyrgyzstan 18 documents and a trade office. Korea's instruments are loans and guarantees for Korean equipment. The declaration adds a calendar.
Tokayev tells Korean business he will turn Kazakhstan into one big construction site; Ashgabat's state site has yet to post its own president's 13 documents
At a Kazakh-Korean roundtable in Seoul on Tuesday Tokayev put the joint project portfolio at 51 projects worth over $4 billion and invited Korean companies into hospitals, schools, sports facilities and transport. His talks with President Lee were still ahead at this edition; hours after 13 documents were signed at Serdar Berdimuhamedov's summit with Lee, Turkmenistan's state site had posted at least 10 items for the day and none on the summit.
A $1 billion contract for Rogun's right bank appears in the World Bank's procurement plan, with 13 August in the signing column and no contractor named
The Bank's updated procurement plan for the Sustainable Financing for Rogun project, published on 6 September, lists Lot 3A, the remaining right-bank structures, at an estimated $1 billion, Asia-Plus reported on Tuesday. The package it replaces was priced at $1.385 billion and cancelled. A day earlier, in London, the finance minister signed an EBRD investment roadmap to 2030.
Ashgabat signs 13 documents at the Blue House, from investment protection to the Karakum Canal; Rahmon is the last of 5 presidents to leave for Seoul
Serdar Berdimuhamedov's Tuesday meeting with Lee Jae-myung produced 13 agreements and memorandums, Seoul Economic Daily reported at 12:20 Seoul time, plus a thank-you from Lee for Turkmenistan's help in evacuating Koreans from Iran. Tokayev's turn is the afternoon. Tashkent's 13 from Monday now have contents.