OCT. 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The EBRD lent $850,000 to Gul Zaman, Turkmenistan’s largest events and catering company, to expand its business and create a premium industrial-scale bakery. The EBRD said that the EU will also provide grants and training for the project. Last month, the EBRD gave a $2.8m loan to a Turkmen brewer to build a potato crisp plant.
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(News report from Issue No. 301, published on Oct. 21 2016)
OCT. 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The EBRD gave a $560,000 loan to Taze Ay, a Turkmen meatpacker aiming to expand its production line by 25%. Located in the southern city of Mary, Taze Ay was founded in 2003 by a local family. Taiwan’s International Development and Cooperation fund will also contribute to the expansion of the factory with a $240,000 loan.
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(News report from Issue No. 300, published on Oct. 14 2016)
OCT. 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – US golf champion Jack Nicklaus flew to Ashgabat to meet with Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov to discuss designing Turkmenistan’s first golf course. Mr Nicklaus’s company, Nicklaus Design, has mulled building a golf course in Turkmenistan, near the border with Iran, for the past couple of years.
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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)
OCT. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen workers have been unable to access their salaries due to cash shortages at cashpoints across the Dashoguz province in northern Turkmenistan, the local service of RFE/RL reported. Teachers and other state workers who had not received salaries for months were notified that their back salaries had been paid into their bank accounts. Cash shortages, however, made funds inaccessible. News has been leaking out of Turkmenistan for months about cash shortages.
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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)f
SEPT. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s ministry of railway transport will cut 30% of its work- force by the end of the year, opposition news outlet Alternative News of Turkmenistan (ANT) reported. Sources in Ashgabat reported the sacking of 15 workers in mid-September. ANT has previously reported on government job cuts and unpaid salaries.
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(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)
SEPT. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan may be known around the world for making intricate carpets, breeding fine horses and pumping enough gas out of the ground to help power China, but now it wants to branch out into crisp production.
The EBRD said that it was lending Turkmen brewer Berk $2.8m to build a potato crisp plant.
“Already a leading producer on the Turkmen beer market, Berk hopes to also become a frontrunner in potato chips production in the country, where most chips (crisps) are currently imported,” the EBRD wrote in a press release.
Berk and the EBRD will face some significant cultural challenges trying to spread crisp eating in Turkmenistan, though.
Sales of spirits, mainly vodka, currently dwarf beer sales and, while crisps are particularly popular as a beer snack in Britain, they are still viewed with suspicion in other countries. In Russia, for example, the norm is to eat salty, chewy cheese with beer.
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(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)
SEPT. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Russian Air Transport Agency said that Turkmenistan Airlines had settled its debt of $220,000 and that it will lift the flight ban on the Central Asian carrier. Two days earlier, the Russian agency had banned Turkmenistan Airlines from flying over Russian airspace and landing at Russian airports until it settled its debt.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov opened a new airport in Ashgabat, which included a bird- shaped passenger terminal, that cost $2.3b to build and is capable of serving 17m passengers a year.
The airport, which the World Record Academy has called the world’s largest bird-shaped building, spans 364m.
Mr Berdymukhamedov wants the airport to become a key hub for pas- senger and cargo transit between Europe and Asia.
“The opening of the new international airport in Ashgabat will contribute to the full integration of Turkmenistan in the system of international relations,” a Turkmen government website wrote.
To achieve these ambitious goals, the government will have to relax some of its visa rules. Last year, only 110,000 foreigners visited Turkmenistan, according to Turkmen data.
Grandiose buildings, however, also serve as photo-ops and symbols of Mr Berdymukhamedov’s attempts to mould Turkmenistan’s image onto his own.
The near empty over-sized resort town of Avaza on the Caspian Sea shore, an indoor Ferris wheel considered the largest in the world and the largest hand-woven carpet all tell a similar story to that of the newly- unveiled airport.
The Guinness World Records said in 2013 that Ashgabat was the city with the greatest density of marble- clad buildings.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Belgorkhimprom, a Belarusian firm in charge of building the Garlyk mining and processing plant in eastern Turkmenistan, has not paid wages to its workers for three months, according to opposition website Alternative News of Turkmenistan. Belgorkhimprom has not commented. The Garlyk plant will mostly service state-owned Turkmenkali, which produces potash, a fertilizer. Economic hardships since the price of commodities collapsed in mid-2014 have delayed several industrial projects in Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov opened the largest hotel in the resort town of Avaza, on the Caspian Sea coast, local media reported. Shaped like a cruise ship, the new five-star hotel cost over $100m to build. The new hotel represents just the latest symbol of Mr Berdymukhamedov’s cult of personality in Turkmenistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)