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The ADB puts $250 million into the road around Tbilisi
The Asian Development Bank approved a $250 million loan on 30 July for an 18.9-kilometre four-lane bypass of the Georgian capital, framing it as freight relief on the corridor that links Central Asia to Europe.
Ashgabat gives the EBRD five doors to knock on
EBRD president Odile Renaud-Basso signed a package of five memorandums in Ashgabat on 28 July, among them a 2027–2032 strategy framework with the Central Bank of Turkmenistan. President Serdar Berdimuhamedov received her the following day.
Kazakhstan’s oil export duty falls 23% for August
Kazakhstan will levy $76 on each tonne of exported crude and light products in August, down from $99 in July, as its price-linked duty formula tracks a weaker oil price. The cut lands on volumes already thinned by the closure of the CPC route, so the state’s oil take shrinks on rate and quantity at once.
The war on Russia’s warehouses arrives in Kazakhstan
Ukrainian drone strikes on Wildberries’ Russian warehouses have burned through the stock of Kazakh sellers who trade on the platform, and they are pushing Wildberries and Ozon to move warehousing south into Kazakhstan. The first move costs Kazakh small traders real money now; the second offers Kazakhstan a larger logistics business, though not a cheap one.
A tungsten mine for a million tonnes of ore a year
Patokh Shodiev and Mukadaskhan Ibragimova, with a Chinese partner, will develop the Bayan tungsten deposit in North Kazakhstan region. Peak output is put at 1 million tonnes of ore a year, and the first year at 2,820 tonnes.
Kabul turns to its northern door
The Taliban economic commission approved expanding trade through Sher Khan Port with Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and China, and told the public works ministry to build the Afghan section of an ECO rail corridor.
Bishkek finds 40 companies at sanctions risk, and closes three
About 40 companies carrying heightened sanctions risk have been identified in Kyrgyzstan since the start of July. Three have been shut and a cryptocurrency licence revoked, and the three match names on the European Union’s new list.
The corridor and the war now share one sea
Peskov called the strikes in the Caspian extremely dangerous on Monday. In the same days, the first cargo to move under electronic TIR across three countries crossed that water from Baku to Turkmenbashi.
Pashinyan asks Putin to lift the export bans
Armenia’s prime minister raised the Russian restrictions with Putin by telephone on Monday, the day the dairy ban took effect, and told him they contradict both the bilateral treaty framework and the rules of the Eurasian Economic Union.
Russia puts a price on the migrant family
The law Putin signed on 26 July ties the right to work to an income test measured per dependant, and charges a fixed monthly tax for each of them. Most of it starts on 1 January 2027.
Armenia’s dairy ban takes effect
Russia’s restriction on Armenian dairy came into force on Monday. Yerevan’s food safety inspectorate says the joint inspection behind it found nothing of the kind.
Kabul and Tashkent sign 22 documents worth $200 million
This morning the desk asked which goods would appear when the paperwork did. Cotton appeared first, at 10,000 tonnes on trial with an offer for 100,000 more.
Tashkent sends a 300-strong business delegation to Kabul
Uzbekistan’s deputy prime minister spent the weekend in Kabul with a delegation and a tariff offer. The stated target is $5 billion of trade.
EcoIslamicBank goes on the EU list from 13 August
The 21st package names a Kyrgyz bank, three Bishkek companies and two Kazakh ones. Within a day, transfers from Russia to four countries stopped going through.
Kazakhstan moves from a fine to a seizure at Kashagan
Property and vehicles belonging to the Kashagan operator went under restriction on 21 July. The justice ministry has told the operator’s managing director he could face criminal liability.
Mongolia enters the EAEU tariff system
The interim trade agreement between the Eurasian Economic Union and Mongolia entered into force on 22 July. Duties are cut or removed on 367 tariff subheadings for each side, covering about 90% of the trade between them, for three years with automatic renewal. By the commission’s account, Mongolia has no comparable agreement with anyone else in the region.
Uzbekistan signs its own commercial court into law
President Mirziyoyev has signed the constitutional law on the Tashkent International Financial Centre, which takes effect on 25 July. It creates a special jurisdiction with its own regulation and its own court: the Tashkent International Commercial Court, with a first instance and an appeal chamber, for commercial, corporate and financial disputes inside the centre.
Astana starts collecting $4.9 billion against an arbitral order
The voluntary deadline passed on 20 July, and Kazakhstan opened enforcement proceedings for a 2.3 trillion tenge environmental fine against NCOC, the Kashagan operator, the justice ministry said on the 21st; the tenge figure is the legal one, and dollar renderings of it run from $4.4 to $4.9 billion. A UNCITRAL tribunal had barred exactly that, as the consortium announced on 16 July. Reuters reports the state warned the consortium’s chief executive of administrative and criminal liability.
Moscow starts Uzbekistan up the produce ladder
Rosselkhoznadzor will restrict imports from five Uzbek exporters from 23 July, citing phytosanitary violations: cabbage, onions, herbs, beetroot, tomatoes and grapes. In May the same regulator suspended ten Uzbek exporters. Armenia climbed this ladder rung by rung this spring, to a full ban in June.
The first e-TIR truck heads for Turkmenistan
The first pilot shipment under the electronic TIR customs system between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan began this week, the head of Azerbaijan’s road carriers association said: the cargo has already crossed from Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan over the Caspian and moves on to Turkmenistan next.