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Bishkek screens every cash exchange and every crypto firm’s owner as sanctions clocks run
The cabinet approved an anti-laundering strategy to 2030 and rewrote its 2025 rules for virtual-asset firms: beneficial owners vetted by the financial intelligence service, mining licences reported monthly, identification for every cash exchange whatever the sum. The documents name no deadline. Russia’s cash-rouble cap took effect on Tuesday, US sanctions on banks dealing with Russian state banks are due from 18 October, and EU and US lists carry Kyrgyz names.
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.
ADB's president promises Mongolia $1.3 billion by 2027 and signs $455 million in a week
Asian Development Bank president Masato Kanda announced plans to invest $1.3 billion in Mongolia by 2027 during a visit in which he met President Khurelsukh, received the Friendship Medal and spoke at the CAREC ministerial conference, the bank said on Thursday. Three loans signed this week come to $455 million for provincial health, schools and disaster preparedness.
Pashinyan: a modular reactor will not be enough as Armenia's surplus turns to deficit
Armenia had surplus electricity a year and 4 months ago and now has a deficit because the investment programmes already approved absorb all of it, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told a briefing on Thursday, and the modular nuclear plant the government had settled on will most likely not be enough. He also said Yerevan has had no signal of a rise in the price of Russian gas.
Baku delays its e-transfer reporting rule to January and rewrites the thresholds
A day before Azerbaijan's banks were to start reporting every electronic transfer by a client whose transfers had passed 20,000 manat in a year, the Financial Monitoring Service moved the start to 1 January 2027 and rewrote the test. Reporting will follow any single transfer of 20,000 manat or more and, for individuals, every further transfer in a month once the month's total passes 50,000 manat.
Guler expects Kyrgyz and Kazakh troops at larger drills as 3 armies train in Khojavend
The Strength of Unity 2026 exercise of Azerbaijan, Türkiye and Uzbekistan held its observer day at the Qizilqaya range in Khojavend district on Thursday, with the participating countries' defence ministers and chiefs of general staff present, Azerbaijan's defence ministry said. Türkiye's Yasar Guler said he believes the Kyrgyz and the Kazakhs will join for larger exercises, and Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan signed a 2027 military cooperation plan in Baku.
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.
China's refiners halt fuel exports for October, and Mongolia has 18,000 tonnes on order
Chinese refiners have halted exports of petrol, diesel and jet fuel for October to every destination but Hong Kong and Macau, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing 4 sources. Mongolia has ordered 8,000 tonnes of petrol and more than 10,000 of diesel from China for the month, Kyrgyzstan thanked Beijing last week for stable supplies, and Russia's producers' diesel export ban runs to 31 October.
Georgia's budget annex lists 8 arbitration claims at $4.8 billion, half its 2027 tax plan
The fiscal-risk analysis attached to Georgia's 2027 draft, published on Thursday, lists 8 pending international arbitrations with claims of $4.8 billion, about 12.6 billion lari and half of the draft's 25.2 billion lari tax plan. Two cases already lost, ENKA's over the Namakhvani dam and Inter RAO's, carry about $582 million between them, and ENKA took its award to a Washington court in September.
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and the UAE sign a memorandum on a rail route to Pakistan's ports
The transport ministries of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and the UAE's Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure signed a memorandum on 30 September to study a new railway, named CASA, running from Kazakhstan through Uzbekistan and Afghanistan to Pakistan's seaports, the Kazakh government said. The parties will run technical and economic studies and are considering a working group on the project's financing.
Georgia publishes 2027 spending with no revenue line as the central bank curbs credit
Georgia's finance ministry sent parliament a first 2027 draft on 30 September with spending of GEL 37.56 billion, growth of 5%, GDP of GEL 126.4 billion and GDP per head of $12,000, and its release carried no revenue, deficit or debt figure. On the same afternoon the National Bank announced tighter payment-to-income limits for borrowers earning GEL 1,500 to 2,500 a month.
Plan, ceremony, tally: how Kazakhstan's investment forums count
In Almaty the plan said "more than 40" documents, the stage showed ten and the evening tally said 50. In Berlin 37 projects became "more than 30" documents and the euros became dollars. Peter Lidovsky on the number every forum produces and nobody audits.
Türkiye and Azerbaijan sign defence contracts worth over $500 million at ADEX in Baku
Turkish defence firms signed four supply contracts and one memorandum with Azerbaijan at the ADEX 2026 exhibition in Baku on 30 September, Türkiye's defence-industry chief Haluk Görgün said, putting the package at more than $500 million. TUSAŞ will deliver 14 Hürkuş-II trainers this year, Baykar sells Mızrak loitering munitions and Antidot systems, Roketsan the Barbaros coastal defence system. ASELSAN signed a memorandum on ALP-100 radars.
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.
Azerbaijan Investment Holding and China's Silk Road Fund set up a $1 billion joint fund
Azerbaijan Investment Holding and the Silk Road Fund are creating a joint investment fund with capital of 7.5 billion yuan, about $1 billion, the holding said on 30 September at the second Azerbaijan International Investment Forum in Baku. The fund grows out of a framework agreement the two signed in April 2025 and will finance projects in Azerbaijan and in other Belt and Road countries.
Mirziyoyev sets out 100 English-language STEM schools and 300 foreign campuses
Meeting teachers ahead of Teachers' Day on 30 September, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said 40,000 Uzbek teachers now earn $1,000 a month and 1,500 more than $2,000. He set new targets: 100 schools teaching mathematics, informatics and science entirely in English from next year, branches of 300 leading universities, subsidised private schools in 52 overloaded districts and a doubled tax-free income threshold for private-school parents.
Drivers circle Sukhbaatar Square as Mongolia's opposition moves on the cabinet
Cars circled Ulaanbaatar's central square on 1 October in protest at a petrol shortage that began in July. In parliament, a Democratic Party MP read out the loan ledger behind a ₮500 billion fuel-storage programme and said the whole cabinet must answer, while his party collects signatures to bring down the government. The fuel headquarters and the Khural plenary sit at 14:00 Ulaanbaatar time.
Uzbekistan’s external debt reaches $84.1 billion as imports run 24% ahead of a year earlier
Uzbekistan’s total external debt stood at $84.1 billion on 1 July, $1.9 billion more than on 1 January, the Central Bank’s half-year review of the balance of payments says. Of that, the state owed $41.7 billion and companies and banks $42.4 billion. The current account ran a deficit of about $6.2 billion in the first half, with exports of goods down 8.6% and imports up 24%.
Pashinyan tells Rosatom the new reactor will be chosen on price, safety, dates and guarantees
Nikol Pashinyan received Rosatom’s director general Alexei Likhachev on Tuesday and discussed the extension of the second unit of the Armenian nuclear plant and Russia’s proposals for a new unit, his office said. The government is still weighing offers from international partners and will decide soon, and the final decision “will be of an exclusively economic nature, taking account of price, quality, safety, timing and guarantees”.
Georgia switches off its intraday power market for 9 months from Thursday
The Georgian Energy Exchange suspends its intraday electricity market from 1 October to 1 July 2027, under a government resolution of 8 September and a regulator’s rule change of 18 September, the exchange said in a notice dated Tuesday. Trading on the day-ahead market continues as usual. Participants lose access to the intraday trading system for the 9 months and keep their registered portfolios.