Uzbekistan
Central Asia is going nuclear on Russian reactors and Russian credit
Uzbekistan has poured the first concrete for its nuclear plant. Kazakhstan has signed a $16.5 billion deal for its own. Both will be built by Rosatom, financed largely by Moscow, and fuelled on Russian terms. The region that talks about loosening its dependence on Russia is pouring four decades of it into the ground.
The IMF likes Uzbekistan’s numbers and still flags the risks
Uzbekistan grew 7.7% in 2025 and brought inflation down, the IMF said this week. The praise came with the usual instruction: keep policy tight, because the easy part of the cycle is ending.
Kyrgyzstan gains two villages from Uzbekistan, and a road that cuts 200 kilometers off the trip
Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan swapped border land this week: two villages of about 2,500 people moved to Kyrgyzstan, equal plots went back, and 236 hectares changed hands for a road that cuts one regional journey from 255 kilometers to 55. Bishkek has already proposed the same kind of swap to Kazakhstan.
Uzbekistan offers Beijing the value-chain deal Kazakhstan offered Brussels
As Tokayev pressed Brussels to process Kazakh minerals inside Kazakhstan, Tashkent was making the same case to Chinese state firms. Two rival buyers are hearing one regional pitch: build the value chain here. Uranium runs through both.
EBRD puts $25 million into an Uzbek steelmaker
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is lending $25 million to expand steel production in Uzbekistan. It is the kind of mid-size, real-economy deal that tells you more about the investment climate than any forum headline.
The three Syr Darya states lock in their summer water-for-power deal
Energy and water ministers from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan met in Bishkek and signed a protocol governing water releases and electricity supply for July and August. It is the routine machinery of a bargain the region cannot afford to get wrong: upstream water for downstream power, settled season by season.
Tashkent's forum showed a country sitting comfortably on every bloc at once
Weekend reporting on the Tashkent forum drew out a quieter result than any dollar figure. With Russia's premier on the plenary stage, US executives in side rooms, the EU courting the Middle Corridor and Albania making a debut, Uzbekistan displayed a multivector balance that one regional report called emphatic non-alignment.
Tashkent's forum closes, and the number that matters is the conversion rate
TIIF-2026 wrapped on 18 June. The closing headline figure was still not public as this edition went out, but a more telling number did surface: about 35% of the deals signed at last year's forum are already in implementation.
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan set up a joint commission on shared water
The two governments agreed on 17 June to create a transboundary water management commission. It drew none of the attention the Tashkent forum did. Over a decade it may matter more.
Tashkent's investment forum closes on its deal-making day
TIIF-2026 ends on 18 June with the Foreign Investors Council session that turns three days of pitches into commitments. The benchmark to beat is last year's $30.5 billion. The closing tally is expected later today.
Uzbekistan loses to Colombia but scores the goal it will remember
Abbosbek Fayzullaev levelled the match at the Azteca on the hour, the first World Cup goal in Uzbekistan's history. Colombia answered within five minutes and won 3 to 1, but the debut delivered the moment the country came for.
The White Wolves take the Azteca pitch tonight in Central Asia's first World Cup match
Uzbekistan's confirmed starting eleven lines up against Colombia at 22:00 local time in Mexico City, 02:00 UTC, 18 June. Eldor Shomurodov leads the line. Cannavaro asks for the game to be played on Uzbekistan's terms.
Uzbekistan's Wednesday: plenary stage, two supertankers, and the Azteca
In a single day Uzbekistan ran its largest investment pitch, watched the first Iranian oil leave through Hormuz since the blockade, and sent eleven men to play the World Cup at the Estadio Azteca. Each is a separate story. Lined up, they describe a country that is having a moment.
Mirziyoyev opens TIIF with an invitation and a framework; Germany and Tajikistan respond
Mirziyoyev told nearly 4,000 delegates Uzbekistan's doors will always remain open and framed investment as a partnership, not a capital transfer. Germany's president arrived for a bilateral focused on industry and labour. Tajikistan set a $2 billion trade target.
A good week to be pitching Central Asia
TIIF in Tashkent, the IsDB in Baku, and the Iran deal ticking toward Geneva have converged in a single week. The timing is not accidental. Central Asia has a window, and Uzbekistan in particular is spending it hard.
Uzbekistan plays its first World Cup match tonight
Central Asia's footballing moment arrives at the Azteca on 17 June, when Uzbekistan face Colombia in their World Cup debut. Ranked 50th, coached by Fabio Cannavaro, they are heavy underdogs, and the first team from the region ever to reach the finals.
Mirziyoyev opens the investment forum his country has been building toward
The fifth Tashkent International Investment Forum opened its plenary on 17 June with €75 billion in projects on the table. Uzbekistan is pitching itself as Central Asia's investment hub in front of more than 8,300 delegates from 100 countries.
Two forums, one pitch: the region sells resilience as the war premium fades
In the same week, Tashkent and Baku are both courting global capital on a promise of stability and integration. The timing is telling: with the Iran war ending, the region has to win capital on fundamentals again, after a season when someone else’s crisis did the selling.
Tashkent opens its biggest investment forum yet, with a new financial center as the prize
Uzbekistan opened the fifth Tashkent International Investment Forum on 16 June, with 3,423 delegates from 100 countries and a new common-law financial center at its core. The pitch is stability and reform, sold to capital that has grown choosier about where it goes.
Kazakhstan’s Senate ratifies a border-regime deal with Uzbekistan
Kazakhstan’s Senate ratified the agreement governing the regime along its 2,356-kilometre border with Uzbekistan on 11 June, the last legal step in a demarcation the two finished in 2022.