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Tajikistan plans an 800 MW Hutalon dam between Rogun and Nurek at $2.25 billion
A new hydroelectric plant, Hutalon, is to be built on the Vakhsh between the Rogun plant upstream and Nurek downstream, with a design capacity of 800 MW and a preliminary cost of $2.247 billion, the energy and water resources ministry said after minister Daler Juma visited the site on 4 October, Asia-Plus reported on Monday.
Mongolia’s budget revision goes back to committee as the ruling party sets 20 October
Mongolia’s parliament sent the third reading of the 2026 budget revision back to its Budget Standing Committee on Monday, by 68.6% of the members present, to revisit two rejected proposals: a higher care allowance for citizens with disabilities and the education ministry’s lease payments. The ruling party’s faction chair Zh. Batjargal said it must pass by 20 October, ahead of the pension and pay rises due on 1 November.
Moody’s lifts Kyrgyzstan to B2 with a stable outlook, the cabinet says
Moody’s has raised Kyrgyzstan’s sovereign credit rating from B3 to B2 with a stable outlook, the cabinet’s press service said on Monday, citing a stronger credit profile, economic growth and better fiscal indicators. The rating remains below investment grade.
Four German party foundations stop work in Georgia after Tbilisi rejects their grants
The Konrad Adenauer and Friedrich Naumann foundations closed their Tbilisi offices on 30 September after the government rejected on 28 July the grant applications the Law on Grants obliges them to file, and the Heinrich Böll and Friedrich Ebert foundations have followed, JAMnews reported on 2 and 3 October. Speaker Shalva Papuashvili said foreign political parties and their foundations “have no political mission to carry out in Georgia”.
Turkmenistan reports 6.3% growth for 9 months and a budget collected to 100.1% of plan
The readout of the Cabinet of Ministers’ sitting of 2 October, held by video link under President Serdar Berdimuhamedov, puts GDP growth for January to September at 6.3%, budget revenue at 100.1% of plan and spending at 97.2%, and foreign trade turnover 8.3% above a year earlier. All figures are the state’s own, with no base sums printed.
Kazakhstan’s inflation slows to 9.3% in September as the tenge opens the week at 447.73
Annual inflation fell to 9.3% in September from 9.8% in August, the fourth monthly decline in a row, the Bureau of National Statistics reported on 1 October. Monthly inflation held at 0.6%. The National Bank set the official rate at 447.73 tenge to the dollar for Monday, with the base rate at 16.25% ahead of its decision of 23 October.
Uzbekistan folds two ministries into one for education and science
A decree of 3 October merges the Ministry of Preschool and School Education and the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation into a Ministry of Education and Science, and gives the Cabinet a week to organise it. That evening economic adviser Obid Khakimov became deputy head of the presidential administration for education reform, and on Sunday businessman Zafar Khashimov was named to lead a working group on it.
An Armenian court remands the Azerbaijani soldier taken at Shaki for 2 months on 5 charges
The Investigative Committee said on Friday that Nasim Musaev, the Azerbaijani conscript accused of shooting a woman in her home in the Syunik village of Shaki on Thursday, was remanded in custody for 2 months. Armenia’s Prosecutor General’s Office is prosecuting him under 5 articles: illegal border crossing, smuggling of military goods or firearms, illegal arms trafficking, unlawful entry into a dwelling and grave harm to health.
Mongolia’s Democrats demand a confidence vote on Uchral as the Khural debates the budget
The Democratic Party’s political council asked on Friday that Prime Minister Uchral put a question of confidence to the Khural, party leader Tsogtgerel said, after its first demand, the dismissal of defence minister Batlut, went unanswered. The parliament sat the same day on the 2026 budget rewrite, with votes set for 17:00, and the industry minister said 78,000 tonnes of petrol are contracted from Russia for October.
Tajikistan’s lower house ratifies a second $300 million World Bank grant for Rogun
The Assembly of Representatives ratified on Thursday the financing agreement with the International Development Association for the first phase of Rogun’s sustainable financing, a $300 million grant the World Bank’s board approved on 30 June, Asia-Plus reported on Friday. With the first grant of $350 million the IDA’s money for the plant reaches $650 million, against about $5.8 billion that S&P put on the remaining work in August.
Tbilisi says free power to Abkhazia cost Enguri 64 million lari and its 2025 profit
Georgia’s fiscal risks analysis for 2027 counts 64 million lari that Enguri lost in 2025 by supplying Abkhazia free, up from 45 million in 2024, bm.ge reported on Friday. The plant sent 1.465 billion kWh there, sold 1.606 billion at home and exported 309.2 million, and the ministry says it would have made a 61 million lari profit instead of losing 3.7 million.
Ashgabat’s forum spends day 2 on a crypto road map to 2030 and prices no document
A deputy communications minister told the forum on Friday that Turkmenistan has a law on virtual assets and a road map to 2030 for regulating them and introducing mining: the Central Bank licenses crypto exchanges, the energy ministry sets tariffs for industrial mining and the finance ministry watches the money, Turkmenportal reported. The pages that list Thursday’s 7 documents still print no sum.
Uzbekistan’s Senate lets the Central Bank write its rules without the chamber of commerce
Senators approved on Friday a law that frees the Central Bank’s regulations from consent by the chamber of commerce and the business ombudsman, registers its prudential and monetary-policy acts at the justice ministry within 10 working days and lifts the 3-month wait before they take effect, Gazeta.uz reported. Checks on the regulator will need a Senate decision, and the drafting followed the IMF and World Bank’s FSAP advice.
Astana and Ulaanbaatar set a $500 million trade target against $133.5 million last year
The 10th session of the Kazakhstan-Mongolia intergovernmental commission met in Astana on Thursday and signed a protocol that aims the two countries’ trade at $500 million under their 2025 to 2027 roadmap, Mongolia’s foreign ministry said. Kazakhstan’s agriculture ministry put 2025 trade at $133.5 million, with $123 million of it Kazakh exports, so the target is almost 4 times last year’s turnover.
An Azerbaijani conscript who left his unit is held in Armenia, accused of shooting a woman
A serviceman who walked out of an Azerbaijani unit in the Lachin district on 26 September is accused of entering a house in the Syunik village of Shaki on Thursday and shooting the woman who found him in the leg. He was detained 90 minutes later. The prosecutors general of Armenia and Azerbaijan issued statements that match on his absence from his unit and open different cases.
Kyrgyzstan’s first satellite rides a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg and will be run from Bishkek
The president’s administration said the spacecraft went up on 1 October from Vandenberg in California on a SpaceX rideshare, the product of joint work with the United Arab Emirates. Sadyr Japarov, who watched the launch, said it is an earth-observation satellite for farmland, glaciers and disasters, built over about two and a half years, and that a communications satellite could follow in 5 to 10 years.
The UK sanctions 4 Georgians for Kremlin disinformation and names Tskhinvali’s leaders
Britain’s package of 1 October lists 23 individuals and entities and 8 ships. Among them are 7 people “involved in spreading pro-Kremlin disinformation”, 4 of them Georgian nationals, and the serving and former heads of the Russian-installed authority in South Ossetia. The same evening a few dozen people rallied in Tbilisi’s Rike Park for Mikheil Saakashvili’s release, against the interior ministry’s refusal.
Ashgabat’s forum signs 7 documents on its first day and prints no sum for any of them
The state portal’s account of the opening day lists 5 memoranda and 2 contracts, among them Damen of the Netherlands twice, for the water authority’s fleet and for the Balkan shipyard to 2036, China State Construction with the railway ministry, Tianjin Bohua with Turkmenhimiya, a Korean telecoms firm and a German contract for Turkmennebit. More than 700 participants heard the finance minister price last year’s GDP at $77.4 billion.
ADB's president promises Mongolia $1.3 billion by 2027 and signs $455 million in a week
Asian Development Bank president Masato Kanda announced plans to invest $1.3 billion in Mongolia by 2027 during a visit in which he met President Khurelsukh, received the Friendship Medal and spoke at the CAREC ministerial conference, the bank said on Thursday. Three loans signed this week come to $455 million for provincial health, schools and disaster preparedness.
Pashinyan: a modular reactor will not be enough as Armenia's surplus turns to deficit
Armenia had surplus electricity a year and 4 months ago and now has a deficit because the investment programmes already approved absorb all of it, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told a briefing on Thursday, and the modular nuclear plant the government had settled on will most likely not be enough. He also said Yerevan has had no signal of a rise in the price of Russian gas.