Economy
Business and investment
The World Bank adds more than $40 million for Tajik agro-logistics and preschool classes
Finance minister Faiziddin Qahhorzoda and the World Bank’s resident representative signed two additional financing agreements on 11 October: $7.5 million to finish an agro-logistics centre in Dangara district and equip one in Dushanbe, and €30 million, $33.6 million, to extend the early childhood development programme to four more districts with 300 preschool classes, Asia-Plus reported on Tuesday. A further $4.5 million comes from the Global Financing Facility.
The IMF slows seven of nine regional economies in 2026 and lifts Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan
The IMF’s October World Economic Outlook, published on Tuesday, has growth slowing this year in seven of the nine economies CAW covers, with Kyrgyzstan still the fastest at 9% and Azerbaijan the slowest at 1.7%. Uzbekistan edges up to 7.8% and Azerbaijan gains too, from 1.4%. World growth slows to 3.1% in 2026 and recovers to 3.4% in 2027, the Fund says.
Mirziyoyev moves the ministries to New Tashkent, where entrepreneurs have 94 hectares
Shavkat Mirziyoyev told the prime minister on Monday to start moving the remaining ministries and state bodies to New Tashkent, three years into a project that has absorbed more than $2 billion from all sources, with the state paying for most of the 1,000 hectares under construction. Entrepreneurs have been allotted 94 hectares, the president said, and private business is being drawn in more slowly than the opportunities allow.
Uzbekistan’s reserves fall $5.5 billion in September as its gold is marked down
The Central Bank of Uzbekistan held $66.58 billion in reserves on 1 October, $5.54 billion or 7.7% less than a month earlier, Spot reported on Friday from the bank’s data. Gold in the vaults was valued at $60.08 billion, down $4.83 billion, while the physical stock rose to 14.34 million ounces from 14.11 million. The fall is a revaluation.
Dushanbe lays the stone of an 8.5 million-passenger terminal with no price and no builder
Emomali Rahmon laid the foundation stone of a new international terminal at Dushanbe airport on Friday, with the chairman of the Majlisi Milli and the city’s mayor, Rustami Emomali, beside him, Khovar reported at 17:59. Capacity is put at 8.5 million passengers a year and the build at 18 months. Khovar names no cost, no contractor and no source of money.
Amulsar opens with the state at 12.5% and three towns promised $7 to 9 million a year
Nikol Pashinyan launched operations at the Amulsar gold mine on Saturday, saying the minerals “that turned into gold before our eyes today belong to the Republic of Armenia”, Armenpress reported. Lydian Armenia operates it with the state at 12.5%. Gnel Sanosyan, the government’s representative on the operator’s board, said Jermuk, Vayk and Sisian would receive $7 to 9 million a year and Jermuk National Park $5 million.
Mongolia’s exports rise 51% in nine months to $16.2 billion on copper and coal
Mongolia sold $16.2 billion of goods abroad in January to September, 51.2% or $5.5 billion more than a year earlier, the National Statistics Committee reported through Montsame on Monday. Imports rose 13.8% to $9.7 billion and the trade surplus tripled to $6.5 billion. Copper ore and concentrate supplied $3.1 billion of the increase and coal $2 billion.
The tenge’s official rate steps to 453.93 for the weekend and holds there for Monday
The National Bank set the official dollar rate at 453.93 tenge for Saturday 10 October and kept it for Monday, by its daily series. That is 4.99 above Friday’s 448.94. Last week ran from 447.73 to 454.98 and back to 447.14, and the bank’s next rate decision is on 23 October.
Russia’s watchdog halts wine, cognac, beer and Nabeglavi water from six Georgian producers
Russia’s consumer watchdog ordered a halt to the import and sale of drinks from six Georgian producers, Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported on Saturday, citing an order obtained by RBC. On the list are wines from Tbilvino, Teliani Valley, Wineman and Askaneli Brothers, whose cognac is also named, beer from the Georgian Beer Company, Nabeglavi mineral water and one Coca-Cola soft drink. The order calls itself a temporary sanitary measure.
Azerbaijan’s GDP grows 1.5% in nine months as the oil sector shrinks 1.2%
Azerbaijan’s gross domestic product reached 102.0 billion manats in January to September, 1.5 per cent more than a year earlier, the State Statistics Committee reported on Friday, with the oil and gas sector down 1.2 per cent to 30.3 billion and the rest of the economy up 2.6 per cent to 71.7 billion. Budget revenue ran 2.8 per cent above plan.
S&P affirms Mongolia at BB- as the central bank tells MPs inflation hit 13% in July
S&P affirmed Mongolia’s BB- rating with a stable outlook on 8 October, the government’s communications office reported on Friday, with net external debt seen falling from 184 per cent of current account receipts in 2020 to 58 per cent this year. A day earlier central bank governor Narantsogt told MPs inflation reached 13 per cent in July and policy stays tight until it returns to about 5.
Georgian prosecutors investigate a central bank board member over an alleged crypto stake
The Prosecutor General’s Office of Georgia opened an investigation on Friday into Nana Keinishvili, a member of the National Bank’s board since September 2023, under article 337 of the Criminal Code on illegal participation in entrepreneurial activity by a public official, acting on statements and audio recordings that the crypto operator Bitexchange sent to the bank. The board will consider her temporary recusal at its next sitting, the bank said.
Kazakhstan’s current account turns to a $2.4 billion surplus as the tenge slips to 448.94
Kazakhstan’s current account showed a surplus of $2.4 billion, or 1.6 per cent of GDP, in the first half of 2026 after a deficit of $13.1 billion for the whole of 2025, the Ministry of National Economy said on Friday from National Bank data, the first surplus in three years. For Friday the official dollar rate is 448.94 tenge, up from 447.14 on Thursday.
ADB grants Tajikistan $20.5 million to digitise pensions for 250,000 pensioners
The Asian Development Bank approved a $20.5 million grant on 2 October to modernise Tajikistan’s Agency of Social Insurance and Pension, $19.5 million of it from the Asian Development Fund and $1 million from the Japan-financed High-Level Technology Fund, by its release from Dushanbe. A new platform is to serve 320,000 contributors and 250,000 pensioners, and $12.32 million comes from ADB’s Middle East conflict package.
Britain sanctions a Kyrgyz Finance Ministry payment company and two Bishkek processors
The UK Sanctions List added Processing KG, whose sole shareholder is Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Finance, its director Ulan Bukabaev, TokenSpot and Tsunami Payments on Thursday under the Russia regime, 24.kg reported at 21:22 Bishkek time from the Foreign Office’s notice. All three face an asset freeze and a ban on payments through them, and London cites reasonable grounds to suspect business of economic significance to the Russian government.
US, Korean and Chinese companies eye UzAuto Motors as Navoiazot’s pre-sale clean-up begins
Companies from the United States, South Korea and China have shown interest in buying UzAuto Motors, the director of Uzbekistan’s State Assets Management Agency Sohibjon Murodov said at a press conference on Thursday, adding that the carmaker goes to open international tender whoever asks. Navoiazot’s financial recovery has begun, and Paynet’s sale went by a pre-emptive right, he said, by Spot.
Britain’s trade minister sits in Akorda as UK Export Finance takes a seat in Yerevan
Tokayev received Lord Anas Sarwar, the UK Minister of State for Trade, on Wednesday and invited Prime Minister Andy Burnham to visit, citing trade up 83% in 2025 to over $1.6 billion and more than 500 British companies, by Akorda’s readout as Zakon carried it. The same evening the first Armenia-United Kingdom Business Forum drew about 2,000 participants and a UK Export Finance team to Yerevan, by Armenpress.
Four of the commission’s five members set the Syr Darya’s winter regime at Avaza
The Interstate Coordination Water Commission’s 95th session agreed water-withdrawal volumes and reservoir regimes for the 2026 to 2027 non-growing season on Wednesday, after Shardara received 3.69 billion cubic metres in the growing season, 840 million above forecast, by Kazakhstan’s water ministry as Kazinform carried it. The Turkmen chair’s readout and the Kazakh one name four delegations, and neither names Kyrgyzstan.
The National Bank’s dollar rate falls to 447.14 after Tuesday’s 454.98 peak
The official rate for Thursday is 447.14 tenge per dollar, 6.51 below Wednesday’s 453.65 and 7.84 below Tuesday’s 454.98, the highest reading of the week, by the National Bank’s daily series. That returns half of the 15.61 the tenge lost between 30 September and Tuesday.
On the dry Mongolian Plateau, steadier plant cover comes with less growth, a study finds
A study of 306 grassland sites on the Mongolian Plateau, 286 of them in China’s Inner Mongolia, finds that the drier the site, the more its plants trade biomass for water-use efficiency and steadier greenness. Mongolia measures its own fight against land degradation in trees planted, 140 million so far against a billion promised by 2030.