Turkmenistan
The Middle Corridor is promised billions while its Caspian ferries sail part-empty
Brussels plans to attract up to €12 billion for the Middle Corridor. The sea at its centre has dropped about 2.5 metres in 30 years, Azerbaijan’s Institute of Geography says, and ferries leaving Kazakhstan already sail with part of their cargo space empty. On Wednesday the ministers of the five shore states met in Avaza to discuss it.
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.
Turkmenistan reports 6.3% growth for 9 months and a budget collected to 100.1% of plan
The readout of the Cabinet of Ministers’ sitting of 2 October, held by video link under President Serdar Berdimuhamedov, puts GDP growth for January to September at 6.3%, budget revenue at 100.1% of plan and spending at 97.2%, and foreign trade turnover 8.3% above a year earlier. All figures are the state’s own, with no base sums printed.
Uzbekistan imported $1.21 billion of gas in 8 months and sold $322 million
Uzbekistan’s gas imports were worth $1.21 billion in January to August, 15.2% more than a year earlier, while its gas exports fell 34.8% to $322.3 million, by National Statistics Committee figures published on 1 October. The bill is almost 4 times the receipts, and on Thursday the US Trade Representative faces its first deadline under the act aimed at the 5 largest importers of Russian gas.
Ashgabat’s forum spends day 2 on a crypto road map to 2030 and prices no document
A deputy communications minister told the forum on Friday that Turkmenistan has a law on virtual assets and a road map to 2030 for regulating them and introducing mining: the Central Bank licenses crypto exchanges, the energy ministry sets tariffs for industrial mining and the finance ministry watches the money, Turkmenportal reported. The pages that list Thursday’s 7 documents still print no sum.
Ashgabat’s forum signs 7 documents on its first day and prints no sum for any of them
The state portal’s account of the opening day lists 5 memoranda and 2 contracts, among them Damen of the Netherlands twice, for the water authority’s fleet and for the Balkan shipyard to 2036, China State Construction with the railway ministry, Tianjin Bohua with Turkmenhimiya, a Korean telecoms firm and a German contract for Turkmennebit. More than 700 participants heard the finance minister price last year’s GDP at $77.4 billion.
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.
Ashgabat opens its investment forum with TAPI as the one project its president names
The Turkmenistan Investment Forum opens on 1 October at the Ýyldyz hotel in Ashgabat for two days. The finance and economy ministry and the foreign ministry organise it with Turkmen Congress, and the programme, as News Central Asia reports it, lists delegations from more than 45 countries and the World Bank, IFC, ADB and EBRD. President Serdar Berdimuhamedov's address names one project, the TAPI pipeline's Serhetabat-Herat section, as under construction.
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.
No political prisoner among Turkmenistan’s 1,054 pardoned, Turkmen.news reports
The list of 1,054 convicts pardoned for the 35th anniversary of independence contains no political prisoner and no member of the Baluch minority, Turkmen.news reported on Monday, citing its sources in the security agencies. The decree, which the outlet and Khronika Turkmenistana both date to Friday 25 September, is the first to free more than a thousand people at once since the anniversary pardon of 2023.
Turkmenistan pardons 1,054 prisoners for its 35th anniversary and names none of them
Serdar Berdimuhamedov signed the pardon decree at an enlarged sitting of the Cabinet and the State Security Council on Friday, two days after a Halk Maslahaty that had passed without one. The number sits between the 736 pardoned before the 2024 anniversary and the 1,180 of 2023, by the counts Turkmenportal and Fergana reported in those years.
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.
Berdimuhamedov gives the Halk Maslahaty a 6.3% year, 41.2 billion manat of investment and 5,300 jobs and asks it for an industrial strategy to 2045
President Serdar Berdimuhamedov told the Halk Maslahaty’s session in Ashgabat that Turkmenistan’s growth “will amount to 6.3 percent” by the end of the year, that capital investment “will amount to over 41 billion 200 million manat” and that the jobs created by the year’s end “will amount to about 5 thousand 300”, the state portal’s text of the speech published late on Wednesday shows. The grain harvest delivered “over 1 million 400 thousand tonnes”, the cotton growers “will deliver 1 million 250 thousand tonnes”, the silk farms produced “over 2 thousand 100 tonnes of cocoons”, and the independence holiday will run 3 days, “27, 28 and 29 September”. He asked the session to adopt a National Strategy of Industrial Development for 2030 to 2045.
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.
Ashgabat sets the CIS summit and a Caspian ecological summit for Avaza on 9 October with Putin confirmed, as the Halk Maslahaty gathers 4 days before the 35th anniversary
Turkmenistan will host the CIS Council of Heads of State and a Caspian Ecological Summit in the Avaza national tourist zone on 9 October, and President Putin “again confirmed his participation” in both, the state news agency’s account of the 2 presidents’ telephone call on Tuesday says. The call came on Serdar Berdimuhamedov’s birthday; the same account has him congratulating Putin on the conduct of Russia’s State Duma election and wishing “the new composition of the Russian parliament fruitful work”. On Wednesday the Halk Maslahaty, the country’s supreme representative body, holds its regular session in Ashgabat’s Maslahat köşgi palace, with the velayat delegations in the capital since Monday, 4 days before the 35th anniversary of independence on Sunday.
Ashgabat now counts 44 documents from its Seoul visit and turns to a Moscow commission
Turkmenistan's Cabinet met by video link on Friday 18 September. The state site's readout raises the Korean visit's tally to 44 signed documents, from the 29 listed by name last week, and turns to preparations for the 14th session of the Turkmen-Russian intergovernmental commission.
Ashgabat lists 16 more Korean documents, from the Turkmenbashi refinery to the Balkan shipyard; its own summit readout is stamped 23:55
The government press service's list pairs the refinery complex with YUHANTECH, the auto-transport ministry with Hyundai Corporation, the communications ministry with LS Cable & System and the water committee with Daewoo E&C. None carries a sum. The state site's post on the Seoul summit names six documents and the four other presidents.
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.