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Georgia promises to double its ports by 2032 for a corridor whose shallowest link is on the other sea
Georgia's sea ports and terminals handled 13.7 million tonnes in the first 8 months of 2026, 24% more than a year earlier and the best figure in ten years, the economy minister told the Georgia International Maritime Forum in Batumi. The prime minister, at the same opening, set a ten-year target: railway capacity doubled, port capacity doubled, airport capacity tripled, about $7 billion by 2032. The route's narrowest section runs across Azerbaijan and the Caspian, at a Kazakh quay whose fenders are broken and whose water is falling, and there the only dated commitment is a dredging contract.
Serbia's president says Uzbekistan's second nuclear plant is being built with China, and Tashkent has named no partner
Aleksandar Vučić told the Uzbek-Serbian business forum in Belgrade on Tuesday that Shavkat Mirziyoyev had told him that morning, one to one, that one nuclear plant is being built with the Russians and another with the Chinese, and that this is not enough for him. Uzbekistan's own record holds one plant, at Jizzakh with Rosatom, and a promise made on 17 August to prepare a second, partner unnamed. If the host heard right, Tashkent is copying the formula Astana chose last year: Rosatom for the first plant, CNNC for the second, and the price as the lever between them.
The upstream no longer asks: what the Nile's war of nerves means for the Amu Darya
On 9 September the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam turns one and Tajikistan turns 35. The dates share a plot: a poor upstream state builds the largest thing it has ever built on a river the downstream lives by. Egypt answered with letters to the Security Council and got a year of arguments about floods. Uzbekistan answered with a railway, a gas valve and a decade of threats, then settled for a 20-year tariff with the World Bank's money behind the dam. On the Amu Darya's other bank a third builder has taken the Ethiopian script line for line, and there is no bank, no tariff and no treaty with which to buy it.
Tashkent and Belgrade adopt a labour-migration agreement and a 2026 to 2028 industrial plan, with a free-trade deal proposed
Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Aleksandar Vucic closed their Belgrade talks on Tuesday by welcoming the adoption of an agreement on mobility and labour migration and adopting a joint action plan on industrial partnership for 2026 to 2028, the presidential press service said in UzDaily's account; a free-trade agreement is proposed for drafting, and the opening of diplomatic missions is named as an important step. Trade between the two countries was $41.9 million in 2025.
Kazakhstan and China sign a policing agreement for the Khorgos trade centre after 14 years of talks
Interior minister Yerzhan Sadenov signed an intergovernmental agreement on security and public order at the Khorgos International Centre of Boundary Cooperation on a working visit to Beijing on 7 September, the ministry said; its spokesman told Tengrinews on Tuesday that the negotiation had taken 14 years. A second agreement gives mutual recognition to the two countries' driving licences.
Mongolia's fuel headquarters counts 19,853 tonnes of petrol in September's first week and queues of 105 cars in Bayan-Ulgii
The emergency headquarters on fuel supply reported on Tuesday that 19,853 tonnes of AI-92 crossed the border in the first week of September, and ordered more fuel into five aimags where the average queue at a station runs 85 to 105 vehicles, against 54 elsewhere.
Rahmon's 35-year ledger runs in somoni: GDP up 100 times, budget revenue up 250 times, energy independence in 2027
In his address for Tajikistan's 35th independence day, published by Khovar at noon on Tuesday, Emomali Rahmon put GDP at 177 billion somoni in 2025 against 1.8 billion in 2000, state budget revenue at 65 billion somoni this year against 252 million, and the arrival of "energy independence" at the third Rogun unit in 2027. The multipliers are nominal sums in somoni; the dollar ledger the World Bank keeps reads $17.6 billion of GDP, and remittances at 47.9% of it.
The Kremlin books Pashinyan for Moscow, and puts the referendum he dropped back on the agenda
Vladimir Putin invited Nikol Pashinyan to Moscow and Pashinyan accepted, Dmitry Peskov said on Monday; the two leaders, in his words, will discuss "the choice of the direction of development, Armenia's orientation" and "the holding of the corresponding referendum". A week earlier in Bishkek the Armenian prime minister had taken that referendum off his table. Moscow has now put it on its own, with no date attached.
Ashgabat sets 9 September for the cotton harvest and hears five governors give the same report
President Serdar Berdimuhamedov held a working meeting on Monday with vice-premier T. Atahallyev and the five provincial governors on the harvest and the wheat sowing, the state site reported; the vice-premier said the cotton picking is scheduled to begin on 9 September, and the president ordered the wheat sown to agrotechnical deadlines and the construction timed to the independence anniversary later this month finished on time. No readout of a Cabinet sitting has appeared on the state sites for Friday 4 September, the second Friday running.
Tajikistan lays the first stone of a 50,000-tonne refining line against last year's 1.21 million tonnes of imports
A processing line rated at 50,000 tonnes of oil products a year was founded on Saturday at Salosa LLC in Jaikhun district, Khatlon, the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources said in a report carried by Asia-Plus on Monday. The company makes road bitumen from its own heavy crude and plans diesel and petrol once the line and new equipment are in; the Antimonopoly Service's import figure for 2025, 1.21 million tonnes worth $959.3 million and about 84% of it Russian, sizes the line at 4% of a year's imports.
Armenia sends the Catholicos back to Armavir, where he is charged with defying one court order
The Court of Cassation has ruled that the criminal case against Garegin II and six bishops belongs to the court of first instance of Armavir province, because the acts charged were committed at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Armenpress reported at 19:45 on Monday. The charge is a single article: part 2 of article 507 of the criminal code, obstructing the enforcement of a judicial act in force through the use of official powers. Behind it stands one bishop, Gevorg Saroyan, whom the Catholicos defrocked in January while a court order kept him in his post.
Kyrgyzstan puts a 74.5 billion som price on its melting glaciers
A decree signed by President Sadyr Japarov creates a fund for the protection of Kyrgyzstan's glaciers and Lake Issyk-Kul, 24.kg reported on Tuesday morning, five days after the environment ministry published a draft National Adaptation Plan to 2035 costed at 74.5 billion som ($852 million), 54% of it expected from foreign grants and climate funds. The decree gives the cabinet until 1 October to say what the fund is and where its money comes from.
Mongolia's premier reaches into the coal company's profit for the pension rise, and the auditor puts the deficit at 2% of GDP
Nyam-Osoryn Uchral said on Monday, as the State Great Khural's extraordinary session opened on the budget amendment, that this year's pension and wage increases will be paid with ₮1.5 trillion ($417 million) taken from Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi as a dividend, through an amendment to the law that keeps state companies' dividends out of the budget. On Tuesday the general auditor told the same chamber that the package adds ₮998 billion of spending with no new revenue and fails the fiscal rule's primary-balance test.
OPEC+'s seven hold October at September's level while Brent opens the week at $97
Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman decided on Sunday to keep their October required production at the September level, with Kazakhstan's line at 1.628 million barrels a day. Brent's November contract traded at $97.28 at 08:15 Moscow time on Monday, up $1 on the day, and the tenge closed at 454.31 to the dollar, 2.04 stronger than on Friday.
The first of 27 tunnels on the Kyrgyz section of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway is through
The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway Company reported on Saturday that the Kosh-Dobo North No. 2 tunnel, 209.6 metres long and started in June 2025, had been holed through: the first of the 27 tunnels under construction on the 304.84 km Kyrgyz section of the line from Kashgar to Andijan.
Uzbekistan's gas fields gave 15% less in seven months and its power plants gave 6.4% more
The National Statistics Committee's release of 4 September puts January to July gas output at 21.6 billion cubic metres, 3.8 billion below last year, and electricity at 52.5 billion kWh, up 6.4%. Sun, wind and imports stand between the two numbers: solar and wind made 6 billion kWh in the first half, a quarter more than a year earlier, and seven months of gas imports cost $1.01 billion, up 8.2%.
Kazakhstan approves a 700 MW coal plant for its nuclear town, and the coal's owners are among the plant's founders
The government approved on Saturday an investment agreement with GRES Kurchatov LLP for an 881 billion tenge ($1.94 billion) coal-fired station in Kurchatov, the Abai region town that houses the National Nuclear Centre and the country's tokamak. Two of the company's founders, Eduard Ogay and Vladimir Dzhumanbayev, also appear in the 2020 share register of Karazhyra, the mine named at the foundation ceremony as its coal source. The release gives the size and the date. It does not give the price the grid will pay.
On the map in your pocket, Russia is 10 Central Asias. On the ground it is 4.3
The UN General Assembly voted on Friday to push the world's maps away from Mercator, for Africa's sake. CAW ran the same arithmetic across Eurasia: the standard web map hands Russia a latitude premium that doubles its visual weight against Central Asia, and hands Central Asia a premium of its own against every neighbour to its south and east. Correcting the map takes the northern half of that bargain away.
Calik's chairman promises Arkadag his contracts will be honoured, a week after a blackout blamed on the station Calik expanded
Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov's Saturday, in the state chronicle's account, ran through the Netherlands and Germany with the Akhal-Teke: a world championship in Akhal-Teke equestrian sport, held in Europe for the first time at the Peelbergen complex in Kronenberg, Limburg, a beauty contest, the presentation of his horse book in Dutch and, on the state chronicle's account, meetings with Ahmet Calik of Calik Holding and Michael Harms of the German Ost-Ausschuss. At home the chronicle carried prosecutors' appointments and two migration-service buildings. Eight days after the Turkmenbashi refinery fire and the four-province blackout, neither has drawn an official word, and the chronicle lists no Cabinet sitting for Friday.
Baku's fuel for Armenia passes 21,000 tonnes as Saturday's 16 wagons leave Balajary
On Saturday 16 tank wagons carrying 977 tonnes of diesel left Balajary station for Boyuk Kasik, the Georgian border, and Armenia beyond it, APA reported. With them the running total of Azerbaijani fuel sent to Armenia stands at about 16,000 tonnes of diesel and about 5,000 tonnes of AI-92 and AI-95 petrol, by the agency's count. The same border crossing took Russian cargo in transit the same day: 355 tonnes of wheat, 180 tonnes of fertiliser and 138 tonnes of timber.