Search
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan put their border crossings on a 24-hour clock
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are moving border checkpoints to round-the-clock operation, qazinform reported on 26 June. It is a small administrative change with a real effect on trade: a border open all night moves more goods than one that closes at five.
At Summer Davos, China shifts from selling to Kazakhstan to building inside it
Kazakhstan’s prime minister spent Summer Davos working a line of Chinese firms, from carmakers to battery giants. The thread running through the meetings is localisation: China moving from exporting goods to Kazakhstan toward manufacturing them there.
A gas superpower cannot keep the lights on in Mary, so it fired the officials
Turkmenistan holds some of the world’s largest gas reserves. In its Mary Region this month the power went out almost daily in 40-degree heat, a rare street protest followed, and the state’s answer was to dismiss local officials. The lights are still flickering.
Before the reactors, the wires: Central Asia loses up to a fifth of its power in aging grids
While Astana and Tashkent pour concrete for nuclear plants, the EDB used its Almaty meeting to point at the cheaper problem underneath: aging generation and grids that lose as much as 20% of the electricity they carry.
Central Asia moves to pool its disaster data as the mudflows multiply
A regional dialogue in Bishkek this week is pushing for a shared online catalogue of climate disasters. The need is in the count: Kyrgyzstan has logged more than 240 mudflows already in 2026, against 133 in all of 2024.
The IMF likes Uzbekistan’s numbers and still flags the risks
Uzbekistan grew 7.7% in 2025 and brought inflation down, the IMF said this week. The praise came with the usual instruction: keep policy tight, because the easy part of the cycle is ending.
The Netherlands tops Kazakhstan’s investor table at $125 billion. The figure is mostly a mailing address
Kazakhstan said this week that Dutch investment has passed $125 billion, keeping the Netherlands its largest foreign investor. The same week in Brussels, Tokayev cited $210 billion of European money. Both numbers count a great deal of capital that only stops in Europe on its way through.
Kyrgyzstan gains two villages from Uzbekistan, and a road that cuts 200 kilometers off the trip
Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan swapped border land this week: two villages of about 2,500 people moved to Kyrgyzstan, equal plots went back, and 236 hectares changed hands for a road that cuts one regional journey from 255 kilometers to 55. Bishkek has already proposed the same kind of swap to Kazakhstan.
Uzbekistan offers Beijing the value-chain deal Kazakhstan offered Brussels
As Tokayev pressed Brussels to process Kazakh minerals inside Kazakhstan, Tashkent was making the same case to Chinese state firms. Two rival buyers are hearing one regional pitch: build the value chain here. Uranium runs through both.
Central Asia tops $600 billion as the EDB gathers in Almaty
The Eurasian Development Bank meets in Almaty on 25 and 26 June behind a flattering number: regional output above $600 billion for the first time, with growth over 6.5%. Beneath the headline sits a harder figure, the cost of the debt that paid for it.
Tajikistan ordered 14 Boeing jets. The question is what pays for them
A fleet order worth billions sits on an economy that runs on migrant wages, owes its debt partly in gold mines, and routes its hard-currency earnings through offshore shells tied to the president's family. The aircraft are real. The questions the Washington ceremony left out are the ones worth asking.
Iran update: a road map out of Burgenstock, and Hormuz stays open
The first round of US-Iran implementation talks closed in Switzerland with a road map toward a final deal and a communication line to keep Hormuz incident-free. Despite a weekend closure threat, the strait kept moving. For Central Asia, the de-escalation puts the oil premium back under pressure.
Dushanbe police break up a fake-medicine ring selling children's syrups
Police in the Tajik capital shut down an underground operation that produced counterfeit medicines, including children's syrups sold under brand names, in unsanitary conditions. One man is detained. The haul points to a public-health problem bigger than a single workshop.
Kyrgyzstan moves 66,000 hectares to organic farming
Bishkek says it has converted 66,000 hectares to certified organic production in a nationwide push. For a small economy hunting export niches it cannot win on volume, organic is a sensible bet on value.
EBRD puts $25 million into an Uzbek steelmaker
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is lending $25 million to expand steel production in Uzbekistan. It is the kind of mid-size, real-economy deal that tells you more about the investment climate than any forum headline.
The three Syr Darya states lock in their summer water-for-power deal
Energy and water ministers from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan met in Bishkek and signed a protocol governing water releases and electricity supply for July and August. It is the routine machinery of a bargain the region cannot afford to get wrong: upstream water for downstream power, settled season by season.
Central Asia's luck and Central Asia's road run through the same 50 kilometers
The weekend put two Central Asian stories on the Strait of Hormuz at once. Iran's threat to close it props up the premium on Kazakh oil. Kazakhstan's new port plot at Bandar Abbas depends on it staying open. The same water carries the region's windfall and its future, and they pull in opposite directions.
Tashkent's forum showed a country sitting comfortably on every bloc at once
Weekend reporting on the Tashkent forum drew out a quieter result than any dollar figure. With Russia's premier on the plenary stage, US executives in side rooms, the EU courting the Middle Corridor and Albania making a debut, Uzbekistan displayed a multivector balance that one regional report called emphatic non-alignment.
Kazakhstan secures land for a port base on the Persian Gulf, at Bandar Abbas
Iran has finalized the allocation of a plot for a Kazakh logistics terminal at Shahid Rajaee port in Bandar Abbas, its main gateway on the Gulf. It is a concrete step toward the southern corridor Central Asia has chased for years. The plot sits on the same strait Iran spent the weekend threatening to close.
Iran threatens to close Hormuz again, and the wartime premium ticks back
The talks that collapsed on Friday reconvened at the Burgenstock over the weekend and reported guarded progress. But Iran threatened to shut the Strait of Hormuz once more over Israel's strikes on Lebanon, oil edged back toward $80, and the premium Central Asia had been losing all week stopped fading. The deal is holding on paper and fraying in practice.