Caucasus
Coverage across the South Caucasus — Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
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.
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.
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.
Baku ratifies Gran Tierra’s onshore PSA for 5 northern districts, 7 months after its signing
The Milli Majlis ratified on Wednesday, in a single reading, the exploration, development and production sharing agreement between SOCAR, Gran Tierra Energy (Azerbaijan) GmbH and SOCAR Quba-Khazaryani for parts of the Quba, Qusar, Shabran, Siyazan and Khizi districts, APA reported at 15:14 Baku time. The agreement was signed in Baku on 18 February. Gran Tierra holds 65% and operates.
Russia caps cash roubles for 7 neighbours at 1 million a head and bans firms from carrying any
A decree Vladimir Putin signed on Tuesday bans anyone from carrying more than 1 million roubles in cash out of Russia into the other 4 members of the Eurasian Economic Union, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan or Uzbekistan. Companies and sole traders may carry none, with 3 exceptions. The $100,000 ceiling that had applied since April is gone, and cash above the limit is confiscated at the border.
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.
Customs chiefs of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye sign a Middle Corridor protocol in Goygol
The fifth meeting of the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Türkiye trilateral committee on customs sat in Goygol district on Monday: Shahin Baghirov for Azerbaijan's State Customs Committee, deputy trade minister Sezai Ucarmak for Türkiye and Revenue Service head Mamuka Baratashvili for Georgia. Faster transit procedures on the Middle Corridor and the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway were named the priorities, and a protocol was signed, APA reported at 11:50 Baku time.
Baku sees a territorial claim in a Georgian church statement, and Tbilisi sees no tension
Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry told the Georgian Patriarchate on Friday that its statement on the church of St George at Kurmukhi, in Gakh district, contained territorial claims and advised it against following the Armenian Church’s example. By Saturday prime minister Irakli Kobakhidze had said there was no tension with Baku, and on Monday an EU-affairs analyst in Tbilisi said everyone had made mistakes.
Azerbaijan’s second investment forum closes on 12 documents by APA’s list and 11 by Report.az’s: an Azerbaijani-Omani fund into Azer-Turk Bank, SOCAR into water, no sums printed
The second Azerbaijan International Investment Forum in Baku, held under President Aliyev’s patronage, produced a signing list of 12 documents in APA’s count at 12:47 and 11 in Report.az’s at 14:10, with no sum attached to any of them. The one ownership line is the Azerbaijani-Omani investment fund’s non-controlling stake in Azer-Turk Bank, signed for the Azerbaijani side by Deyanet Sadullayev, acting chief executive of the Azerbaijan Investment Holding; SOCAR’s line is a cooperation agreement with the State Water Resources Agency and Esyasoft.
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.
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.
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.
Azerenerji signs a $58.6 million turnkey contract with Turkey’s YEO for 250 MWh of batteries, financed by local banks over 4 years
Azerenerji, the state power company, has signed a contract with YEO Teknoloji Enerji ve Endüstri of Turkey for a battery energy-storage system of 250 MWh, worth $58.6 million on an EPC-F basis under which the contractor designs, procures, builds and arranges the financing, Report carried from Turkish media on Tuesday. YEO’s disclosure to the Istanbul exchange on Monday says local banks finance the project with a 4-year repayment term, construction starts shortly and the system is to be commissioned within a year, with the batteries made by REAP Battery, the group’s own company. It follows 2 systems totalling 500 MWh that YEO commissioned in Azerbaijan in the second quarter under contracts signed in 2025.
Aliyev weighs a 5.3 billion manat mining programme to 2030 that must first re-count reserves last measured 40 years ago
President Ilham Aliyev chaired a meeting on Tuesday on the draft State Programme for the development of the mining and metallurgical industry for 2027 to 2030, AZERTAC reported at 14:35. Economy minister Mikayil Jabbarov put the investment at 5.3 billion manats over the 4 years, 1.1 billion from the state budget, 2.2 billion from state companies and 2 billion from private funds, with the sector’s contribution to GDP to rise from 700 million to 1.8 billion manats and its exports from 1.3 billion to 3.4 billion by 2030. The president’s own condition came before the targets: the reserve figures date from Soviet times, about 40 years ago, and are out of date.
The Black Sea drone war reaches the Danube: a Turkish-owned freighter's captain is killed in the Bystre canal as Moscow claims cargo ships hit on 5 of the last 6 days
The Mariam M, a Tanzanian-flagged general cargo ship in the fleet of UBSM Shipping of Mersin, was hit by a drone in the Bystre canal of the Danube delta on Thursday morning on its way to load wheat at Reni. Ukraine's infrastructure ministry says the captain was killed and 3 crew wounded; Turkish maritime outlets put the dead at 2 and the wounded at 13. Russia's defence ministry, which names no ships, has claimed strikes on cargo vessels in Odesa, Chornomorsk and at sea on the Izmail approach on 5 of the last 6 days, on CAW's count of its statements.
Pashinyan calls the “Western Azerbaijan” narrative a threat to the peace and puts Kyarki inside 29,743 square kilometres; Shoigu declares Moscow’s crisis with Baku over
At a security conference in Yerevan on Thursday the Armenian prime minister named the “Western Azerbaijan” narrative a serious challenge and a threat to Armenia’s security, and drew the state’s border by the Soviet republic’s 29,743 square kilometres, with the Azerbaijani enclaves outside it and Artsvashen inside. In Moscow the same day Russia’s Security Council secretary said the crisis with Baku had been overcome by joint effort and that Russia “is not ready and will not finance” Armenia’s European integration.
A Chinese bidder's 100 MW solar plant opens at Pirsaat; Baku's agencies call it the first project awarded by auction
Universal International Holdings Limited won the site in 2024. The plant in Baku's Garadagh district is to produce about 200 million kilowatt-hours a year and save 45 million cubic metres of gas. Azeri Light printed at $128.03 the same morning.
Pashinyan tells parliament the Trump route runs from Azerbaijan's border to Azerbaijan's border, and Armenia decides at the gates
On the day the Constitutional Court cleared the TRIPP agreement, the prime minister spent the government hour answering Baku's description of the route and Moscow's description of the price of Europe. He conceded the geography, kept the jurisdiction and moved the base question to Putin.
Brussels puts €12 billion on the Middle Corridor, and Yerevan's court clears the Trump route the same day
Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday that the EU will aim to crowd in up to €12 billion of public and private investment to link the South Caucasus and Central Asia directly to the European market, with a regional connectivity summit to be organised with Bulgaria's prime minister. In Yerevan the Constitutional Court's external relations department told News.am that the framework agreement with the United States on the Trump route is constitutional, and in Seoul Kassym-Jomart Tokayev asked Korea to integrate the Middle Corridor with that route. The corridor is now priced by three parties that do not build it, and its physical bottlenecks did not move.