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Mongolia’s finance minister splits the 3 trillion tugrik Oyu Tolgoi dividend before it arrives: 1 trillion to citizens’ accounts, 2 trillion to the budget, by a one-off law
Finance minister Z. Mendsaikhan told a briefing at the State Palace on Thursday that the 3 trillion tugrik dividend expected from Oyu Tolgoi in 2027 will be spent under a one-off law, since the dividend is not a permanent budget revenue: 1 trillion into citizens’ named accounts in the accumulation fund and 2 trillion into current budget spending, on pensions, civil servants’ pay, loans to small business at 10%, mortgages and infrastructure, Ikon reported at 14:48 Ulaanbaatar time. MP G. Ganbaatar had said in the same building at 12:05 that the National Wealth Fund law of 19 April 2024 sends the dividend to citizens’ accounts, about 835,000 tugrik a person, and that “assorted thieving projects” cannot be financed from it.
A dawn test at the new Syrdarya plant knocks 1,600 MW off Uzbekistan’s grid, splits Kazakhstan’s north-south transit and sheds 962 MW in the south for 41 minutes
At 05:05 on Friday, during commissioning tests at the new 1,573 MW thermal plant in Bayavut district of Syrdarya region, built by the consortium of France’s EDF, Qatar’s Nebras Power and Japan’s Sojitz and Kyuden, 1,600 MW of capacity dropped out of Uzbekistan’s grid and households and farm water pumps in several regions lost power, the energy ministry said through its Telegram channel; reserves at other plants and the storage systems were brought in, every consumer was back by 07:27, and the ministry apologised, Spot reported at 07:54. Kazakhstan’s grid operator KEGOC put the loss at 1,516 MW at 05:02, said the surge of power flow split its north-south transit, restricted 962 MW of consumption, and restored the southern zone’s parallel operation with the Central Asian systems at 05:43, Forbes.kz reported.
Three Caucasus capitals sell one corridor at the UN in a day: Kobakhidze’s $7 billion to 2032, Pashinyan’s 26% rising to 49%, and Bayramov’s direct dialogue with Mirzoyan
Irakli Kobakhidze told the UN General Assembly on Thursday that Georgia will put $7 billion into its transit infrastructure by 2032, the railway’s modernisation, new highways, the Anaklia deep-water port, a new international airport for Tbilisi and a fibre-optic cable under the Black Sea, and that Georgia “reaffirms its readiness to maintain dialogue with all international partners willing to work with us on the basis of mutual respect and sovereign equality”; the words European Union did not occur in the speech, Novosti Gruzii noted on Friday morning, and 20% of the country “remains under the occupation of the Russian Federation”. The same day Nikol Pashinyan told the hall that Armenia “will initially have a 26 percent stake in the TRIPP Development Company” and that “in the 50th year, the Republic of Armenia’s share will become 49 percent”, Armenpress reported at 05:24 on Friday, and on the margins Jeyhun Bayramov and Ararat Mirzoyan reviewed the progress since the Washington summit and “agreed to continue direct dialogue”, the Azerbaijani foreign ministry said through Report.az at 08:16.
Kazakhstan mourns 12 servicemen from the Caspian exercise, with 2 still sought and the count of the swept-away revised from 19 to 17
Friday is a national day of mourning in Kazakhstan, by President Tokayev’s order, for the servicemen lost in the Caspian on Thursday: the defence ministry’s count on Friday morning is 17 swept into the sea during the Khazar Korgany-2026 exercise, 12 dead, 3 rescued and 2 still being searched for, against the 19 and 9 of its first statement. Round the clock the search runs with 252 personnel, 37 military divers, 14 ships and boats, more than 20 aircraft including 4 helicopters and 34 units of ground equipment, the ministry said, and the Prosecutor General’s office is investigating under article 453 part 2 of the Criminal Code, a negligent attitude to service with grave consequences, and article 465, violation of the rules of navigation.
The EU Council adopts 2 years of duty-free entry for about 80% of Armenia’s exports, the only such regime for a country with neither candidate status nor a free-trade area with the EU
The Council of the European Union formally adopted on Thursday the temporary trade-liberalisation measures for Armenian goods, suspending import duties on about 80% of Armenia’s exports to the EU for 2 years from the day after the regulation’s publication in the Official Journal, Armenpress reported at 14:34. Ireland’s foreign minister Helen McEntee, for the presidency: “We are stepping up our support for Armenia and its people, who have clearly chosen a pro-European path in spite of foreign pressures. Today’s decision will help Armenia’s economy hit by trade restrictions”. Ani Badalyan, the foreign ministry’s spokeswoman, said Armenia becomes the only country that, “without EU candidate status or a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area agreement with the EU, receives such an economic benefit”.
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%.
Three governments spend 3 days in Almaty on the Kambar-Ata-1 agreement: the World Bank watches and the only sum on the table is Kazakhstan’s plan to borrow $500 million for its third of the dam
Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan held the third round of talks on the intergovernmental agreement on Kambar-Ata-1 in Almaty from 21 to 23 September, the Kyrgyz energy ministry said on Thursday through Economist.kg: deputy energy minister Salaat Sadyrakunov for Bishkek, first vice-minister of water resources and irrigation Nurlan Aldamzharov for Astana, first deputy energy minister Umid Mamadaminov for Tashkent, with the World Bank’s representatives in the room as observers. That document is to define the joint construction and management of the plant, the approach to financing it and the coordination between the 3 states, and the sum in the room is Kazakhstan’s plan, first reported by Economist.kg in March, to borrow about $500 million from the bank’s structures for the construction.
Mirziyoyev’s Andijan day: 500,000 sum a tonne for cotton sold through the exchange and a crossing to Kyrgyzstan twice the size of Dustlik
President Mirziyoyev, at a meeting in Andijan on Thursday, ordered a subsidy of 500,000 sum for every tonne of cotton that farmers sell through the commodity exchange, paid also to the clusters that buy it there, and 1.5 million sum a hectare for clusters growing cotton on their own land, Gazeta.uz reported at 14:55; the interest on textile exporters’ loans is proposed to be compensated above 5% in foreign currency and above 14% in sum for 3 years, and the government is to draft a refund of 3% of the value of goods sold through marketplaces. Out of the same day in Andijan came a border post: Keskanyor, agreed with the Kyrgyz side, twice the size of Dustlik, to be designed and started within 3 months.
Azerbaijan drafts its 2027 to 2030 strategy on a 1.2% year, with $91 billion in reserve, 5.6% of GDP in debt and 8.8 billion manat for defence
The drafts of a new development strategy for 2027 to 2030 and of the second State Programme of the Great Return have been discussed at the Economic Council and presented to President Aliyev, Report.az wrote on Thursday at 15:44, quoting prime minister Ali Asadov, and the numbers around them describe the year the strategy is written in: growth of 1.2% in January to August, 2.1% outside oil and gas and a fall of 0.8% inside it, strategic currency reserves of about $91 billion, external state debt of $4.5 billion or 5.6% of projected GDP, a trade surplus above $10 billion in 8 months and inflation of 5.7%, with 5.3% forecast for 2027. Approval is expected in the coming months, Report.az wrote.
Tokayev will dissolve every maslikhat in Kazakhstan, and the councils that Amanat filled in 2023 go back to the polls on a date the election commission has yet to name
President Tokayev told the second day of the People’s Council’s first session on Thursday that the closing stage of the reforms will be elections to the maslikhats at every level: he will consult the prime minister and the Kurultai’s chairman shortly on ending the councils’ powers early, sign a decree, and leave the date to the Central Election Commission, Zakon.kz reported at 12:31. His reason is the party map. The great majority of maslikhat deputies were elected from Amanat, he said, and that party no longer acts on its own, having joined Adilet, so the question of the legitimacy of the greater part of the maslikhats’ deputy corps would arise.
Bad weather sweeps 19 Kazakh servicemen into the Caspian during the Khazar Korgany-2026 naval exercise: 9 dead, 3 rescued, 7 missing
Nineteen servicemen of Kazakhstan’s naval forces were swept into the Caspian Sea off Mangystau on Thursday when the weather turned and the wind rose during the Khazar Korgany-2026 exercise, the defence ministry said; 9 died, 3 were rescued, one of them in hospital, and the search for the other 7 was still running when the government’s statement went out at 15:12 Astana time. Prime minister Olzhas Bektenov put a government commission under deputy prime minister Kanat Bozumbaev and ordered him to the site; the Prosecutor General’s office opened a criminal case.
One abstention, 15 chairs and a date in the law: 3 parliaments count in one week
Astana’s new council produced a single dissenter and no dissent. Ulaanbaatar’s committees voted a budget at half a room. Bishkek’s deputies confirmed, 86 to none, an election day the calendar had fixed for them. The old Commonwealth between the empires knew all 3 arithmetics. The last one ended it.
Erdoğan receives Pashinyan at Türkevi in New York, backs normalisation in trade and transport and invites him to the COP31 leaders’ summit
President Erdoğan received Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at Türkevi in New York on Wednesday, with foreign minister Hakan Fidan beside him, and told him Türkiye supported “the normalisation process in bilateral trade and transport”, welcomed “reciprocal steps in the peace process between Azerbaijan and Armenia” and invited him to the COP31 leaders’ summit Türkiye will host, Hürriyet reported at 20:27 Istanbul time. Armenia’s side went into the meeting saying it “looks forward to border opening, launch of rail connectivity with Türkiye”, Armenpress reported at midday, and came out of it, in Arka’s headline, with both sides seeing a need to “stimulate trade and economic ties”.
Mongolia’s cabinet orders a coal pyrolysis plant at Baganuur for 600,000 tonnes of semi-coke a year, 67% owned by the sovereign fund, to be running by early 2028
The government decided at its regular meeting on Wednesday to build a coal pyrolysis plant on the Baganuur mine through a public-private partnership: 600,000 tonnes of semi-coke a year, a 40 MW power unit and 400 jobs, with construction starting in the fourth quarter of 2026 and commissioning in the first quarter of 2028, Montsame reported. Chinggis Khaan Sovereign Wealth Fund Holding is to hold 67% of the operating company, Baganuur Coal-Chemical Plant LLC, and the capital city 33%; the stated purpose is to cut Ulaanbaatar’s air pollution with a smokeless fuel.
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.
Kazakhstan’s Kurultai ratifies a framework with the AIIB for about $6 billion of concessional money over 5 years, at 1 to 1.5% a year, for 3 roads and a railway
The Kurultai adopted in 2 readings on Wednesday the law ratifying Kazakhstan’s framework partnership agreement with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, signed in February during the visit of the bank’s president Zou Jiayi, Kazinform and Zakon.kz reported. Deputy prime minister and national economy minister Serik Zhumangarin told the deputies the agreement lets the government draw “long money” on concessional terms of about $6 billion in the first 5 years after ratification, at 1 to 1.5% a year, for 17 projects worth $5.3 billion in transport, energy, health and green finance: the Zhezkazgan-Karaganda, Aktobe-Karabutak-Ulgaisyn and Atyrau-Dossor roads and the Moyynty-Kyzylzhar railway among them.
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.
Kyrgyzstan’s parliament sets the presidential election for 27 January 2027 by 86 votes to none, and its prime minister spends the week in Hangzhou with Li Qiang and a trade expo
The Jogorku Kenesh confirmed on Thursday morning that the presidential election will be held on 27 January 2027, by a resolution that 86 deputies voted for and none against, Kabar reported; the law fixes the regular election on the fourth Wednesday of January of the year in which the president’s term expires, and leaves the parliament the confirmation. Speaker Marlen Mamataliyev told the chamber a Wednesday vote is meant to lift turnout and cut vote-buying. On Wednesday the cabinet’s chairman, Adylbek Kasymaliev, was in Hangzhou, where Premier Li Qiang received him on the eve of the Global Digital Trade Expo and named the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway and “the modernization of ports” as the projects to advance, Xinhua reported.
Pashinyan says Armenia is talking to 5 countries about a new nuclear plant, with Rosatom’s 1,200 MW study already in Yerevan and Metsamor’s life running to 2026
Armenia is negotiating with the United States, Russia, China, France and South Korea over a new nuclear power plant and “is looking for the best offer to start construction”, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at a panel of the Concordia summit in New York, Arka reported on Wednesday at 14:27. Metsamor supplies up to 40% of the country’s electricity, its operating life has been extended to 2026 and work is under way on a further extension of 10 years; a preliminary feasibility study by Rosatom for a new 1,200 MW unit is already before the Armenian side, and the plan is to build the new plant within 8 to 10 years.
Remittances to Kyrgyzstan fall to $279.5 million in July, 12% below a year earlier, with Russia sending 9 dollars in 10
Individuals sent $279.5 million to Kyrgyzstan in July, the National Bank’s figures show: $262.1 million from CIS countries, $253.9 million of it from Russia, and $17.4 million from further abroad. The month is $12.6 million below June’s record of $292.1 million and $38.2 million below the $317.7 million of July 2025, a fall of 12% on the year; money sent out of the country fell to $24.4 million from $35.5 million in June, $21.8 million of it to the CIS.