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Rahmon's 35-year ledger runs in somoni: GDP up 100 times, budget revenue up 250 times, energy independence in 2027
In his address for Tajikistan's 35th independence day, published by Khovar at noon on Tuesday, Emomali Rahmon put GDP at 177 billion somoni in 2025 against 1.8 billion in 2000, state budget revenue at 65 billion somoni this year against 252 million, and the arrival of "energy independence" at the third Rogun unit in 2027. The multipliers are nominal sums in somoni; the dollar ledger the World Bank keeps reads $17.6 billion of GDP, and remittances at 47.9% of it.
Ashgabat sets 9 September for the cotton harvest and hears five governors give the same report
President Serdar Berdimuhamedov held a working meeting on Monday with vice-premier T. Atahallyev and the five provincial governors on the harvest and the wheat sowing, the state site reported; the vice-premier said the cotton picking is scheduled to begin on 9 September, and the president ordered the wheat sown to agrotechnical deadlines and the construction timed to the independence anniversary later this month finished on time. No readout of a Cabinet sitting has appeared on the state sites for Friday 4 September, the second Friday running.
Tajikistan lays the first stone of a 50,000-tonne refining line against last year's 1.21 million tonnes of imports
A processing line rated at 50,000 tonnes of oil products a year was founded on Saturday at Salosa LLC in Jaikhun district, Khatlon, the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources said in a report carried by Asia-Plus on Monday. The company makes road bitumen from its own heavy crude and plans diesel and petrol once the line and new equipment are in; the Antimonopoly Service's import figure for 2025, 1.21 million tonnes worth $959.3 million and about 84% of it Russian, sizes the line at 4% of a year's imports.
Armenia sends the Catholicos back to Armavir, where he is charged with defying one court order
The Court of Cassation has ruled that the criminal case against Garegin II and six bishops belongs to the court of first instance of Armavir province, because the acts charged were committed at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Armenpress reported at 19:45 on Monday. The charge is a single article: part 2 of article 507 of the criminal code, obstructing the enforcement of a judicial act in force through the use of official powers. Behind it stands one bishop, Gevorg Saroyan, whom the Catholicos defrocked in January while a court order kept him in his post.
OPEC+'s seven hold October at September's level while Brent opens the week at $97
Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman decided on Sunday to keep their October required production at the September level, with Kazakhstan's line at 1.628 million barrels a day. Brent's November contract traded at $97.28 at 08:15 Moscow time on Monday, up $1 on the day, and the tenge closed at 454.31 to the dollar, 2.04 stronger than on Friday.
The first of 27 tunnels on the Kyrgyz section of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway is through
The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway Company reported on Saturday that the Kosh-Dobo North No. 2 tunnel, 209.6 metres long and started in June 2025, had been holed through: the first of the 27 tunnels under construction on the 304.84 km Kyrgyz section of the line from Kashgar to Andijan.
Calik's chairman promises Arkadag his contracts will be honoured, a week after a blackout blamed on the station Calik expanded
Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov's Saturday, in the state chronicle's account, ran through the Netherlands and Germany with the Akhal-Teke: a world championship in Akhal-Teke equestrian sport, held in Europe for the first time at the Peelbergen complex in Kronenberg, Limburg, a beauty contest, the presentation of his horse book in Dutch and, on the state chronicle's account, meetings with Ahmet Calik of Calik Holding and Michael Harms of the German Ost-Ausschuss. At home the chronicle carried prosecutors' appointments and two migration-service buildings. Eight days after the Turkmenbashi refinery fire and the four-province blackout, neither has drawn an official word that we can find, and the chronicle lists no Cabinet sitting for Friday.
Baku's fuel for Armenia passes 21,000 tonnes as Saturday's 16 wagons leave Balajary
On Saturday 16 tank wagons carrying 977 tonnes of diesel left Balajary station for Boyuk Kasik, the Georgian border, and Armenia beyond it, APA reported. With them the running total of Azerbaijani fuel sent to Armenia stands at about 16,000 tonnes of diesel and about 5,000 tonnes of AI-92 and AI-95 petrol, by the agency's count. The same border crossing took Russian cargo in transit the same day: 355 tonnes of wheat, 180 tonnes of fertiliser and 138 tonnes of timber.
The pardoned Russian left Georgia for Yerevan the same evening the court gave him 7 days
Denis Kulanin flew out of Tbilisi on Friday evening and landed at Zvartnots, 8 days after President Mikheil Kavelashvili's pardon and hours after Tbilisi City Court granted the migration department's expulsion motion in a form that let him pick the country. The exit closes a thread that ran from a pardon through a dry hunger strike and a migration-centre cell to a courtroom, and it closes in Armenia, the destination on the ticket that expired while he sat in the centre on 1 September.
Russian exchange diesel falls 8.8% in the week its producers were locked in
Summer diesel on the St Petersburg exchange ended Friday at 68,610 roubles a tonne, 8.76% below the previous Friday by the national index Interfax publishes, after the government kept producers' exports shut to 30 September. AI-92 fell 4.38% on Thursday to 68,945 and ended the week at 68,805. At the central bank's rate that is $792 a tonne, $168 under the $960 reference Kyrgyzstan's subsidy is written against, and diesel at $790 sits $260 under its $1,050 line.
A Tbilisi court gives the pardoned Russian 7 days to leave Georgia for a country of his choosing
Tbilisi City Court has granted the migration department's motion on Denis Kulanin in full, and the motion carried its own exit: seven days to leave voluntarily, to any country he picks, with a handover to Russia off the table, as Sova and Meduza read the ruling. The order had not reached the migration service by Friday afternoon, his lawyer said, and he stays in its temporary placement centre until it does.
A day after Tashkent's utilities cleared their own pipes, the city names a leaking gas main
Gas from a 219-millimetre underground main collected in a heating-network chamber under Glinka Street and blew out the asphalt on Thursday, Tashkent's city administration said on Friday. On Thursday the capital's heat, water and gas suppliers had all said the blast had nothing to do with their networks.
Tbilisi's file on a dead Abkhaz activist holds three detainees and two theories
Daur Buava, 30, who left Tkvarcheli for Tbilisi in 2021 and made TikTok videos about Abkhazia joining Georgia, was found dead in a rented flat in Didi Digomi on 27 August. A week on, the Interior Ministry's file holds three detainees and two articles of the criminal code, the drugs version the ministry gave on 29 August is disputed by his lawyer, and Wednesday's protest in Tbilisi carried the line «Daur was killed».
Astana breaks its silence on the Uzbek scholar, and says Tashkent has been told
Kazakhstan's National Security Committee gave its first public word on the case of Ikboljon Qoraboyev on Thursday, in reply to a Tengrinews request: the pre-trial file is closed to disclosure under article 201 of the criminal procedure code, and «the Uzbek side has been officially notified through diplomatic channels». Two months into the detention, it is the first confirmation from either government that the case exists.
Dushanbe asks the EBRD to design its solar auctions, single buyer included
The EBRD has taken on the design of competitive auctions for solar power in Tajikistan, two projects of about 200 MW each, at the request of the energy ministry. The bank's project page, disclosed on 5 August and reported in Dushanbe on Wednesday, pairs the auctions with advice on "a new market operator/single buyer entity".
KazMunayGas takes $500 million of the $658 million its dollar bondholders offered
Holders of KazMunayGas's 5.375% notes due 2030 tendered $658.1 million by the early deadline of 2 September, the company said on Thursday. It will buy $500 million of them, the cap it set in August, at a proration factor of 73.1%, and settle on 4 September.
Uzbekistan's governors get 3.2 trillion soums to lend after 17% of last year's new firms close
Shavkat Mirziyoyev told a meeting on poverty on Thursday that 15,000 of the 86,000 small enterprises created in the regions over the past year have already stopped work, and that about 62,000 citizens are struggling to repay the bank loans that started their businesses. His answer puts the lending decision in headquarters run by the hokims, the regional and district governors.
Tokayev completes his cabinet on day 4 of 10, and changes 3 of its 24 names
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed the decrees that fill Kazakhstan's government on Thursday, 4 days into the 10 that the law on government gives a new prime minister. Of the 24 posts under Olzhas Bektenov, 21 keep the people who held them before the August election; the foreign, culture and emergencies ministries change hands.
Azeri Light clears $97, half again the oil price written into Baku's budget
Azerbaijan's export blend was priced at $97.61 a barrel on Wednesday morning, up $4.72 or 5.08% on the day, APA reported; the 2026 state budget was drawn at $65.
The OPEC Fund lends Dushanbe $30 million for 82 km of the road to China
The Vienna-based fund will finance the first stage of the Rushan to Varzesh reconstruction in Gorno-Badakhshan, 82.2 of 235 km on the corridor that runs from Dushanbe through Kulma to the Chinese border, Asia-Plus reported on Wednesday.