Tag Archives: Turkmenistan

Berdy approves expansion of two Turkmen cement factories

JUNE 23 (The Bulletin) — Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov approved the expansion of two cement factories, suggesting that despite the impact of the spread of the coronavirus, Turkmenistan would continue to construct new buildings. The sites will be built by privately-owned companies but will be owned by the Turkmen state.

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, published on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Turkmenistan Airlines to lease first Boeing cargo jet

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JUNE 22 (The Bulletin) — Turkmenistan Airlines will lease its first Boeing 777F, a cargo plane. Media reported that the deal will cost Turkmenistan Airlines an estimated $352m to lease the aircraft from Frankfurt-based Aircraft Finance Germany. The high cost highlights the growing importance of the Europe-Asia cargo business that airlines in Central Asia are competing for.

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, published on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Turkmenistan opens border with Iran

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JUNE 20 (The Bulletin) — Turkmen officials allowed 30 trucks stuck in Iran for 2-1/2 months after the country was closed as part of Turkmenistan’s push to incubate itself against the spread of the coronavirus to cross the border. According to media reports, Iranian officials are still waiting to process 740 more trucks that have been stuck at the border since April 1.

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— This story was first published in issue 451 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, published on June 23 2020

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Turkmenistan still reports no cases of the coronavirus

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APRIL 5 (The Bulletin) — Like Tajikistan, Turkmenistan has not reported any cases of the coronavirus. Some unverified reports from Turkmenistan said that discussion of the coronavirus has been banned.

Quoting a foreign ministry document, Reuters reported that Turkmenistan had banned all freight shipments through its territory because of the spread of the coronavirus.

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— This story was first published in issue 441 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Coronavirus undermines region’s projected growth

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ALMATY/April 5 (The Bulletin) — The coronavirus will undermine what had looked like a strong year of economic growth in 2020 and instead knock the Central Asia and South Caucasus region into a recession.

Of the six countries in the region that have declared states-of-emergencies and infections of the coronavirus, only Kazakhstan has officially said that its economy will shrink in 2020 but analysts expect others to follow.

Kazakh economy minister Ruslan Dalenov said on April 2 that the combined impact of the coronavirus and a fall in oil prices mean that Kazakhstan’s economy will shrink by 0.9% in 2020.

Oil is Kazakhstan’s main export and with prices dropping by 40% to around $35/barrel because of a price war and a drop in demand triggered by the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, Mr Dalenov said oil exports would fall.

“A decrease is also expected compared to previously approved growth rates in the manufacturing industry, agriculture, construction and the services sector, including trade,” he said.

Kazakhstan had previously predicted GDP growth of 4.5% for 2020. It last went into a recession in 2016 after a previous oil price collapse.

In Armenia, the Central Bank is still predicting GDP growth this year but only of 0.7%, down from an earlier prediction of 7.6%.

Other countries have held off giving predictions on the economic cost of the spread of the coronavirus although they have all said that their original growth estimates are likely to be heavily reduced.

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— This story was first published in issue 441 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Berdymukhamedov prepares Turkmen business for restrictions

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APRIL 5 (The Bulletin) — Although it has not reported any cases of the coronavirus and has not imposed a lockdown on its cities, reports from Turkmenistan said that President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov was still discussing various measures to support small and medium-sized businesses from the economic fallout. The US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has also reported large food price spikes in Turkmenistan, linked to fears about the spread of the coronavirus.

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— This story was first published in issue 441 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Central Asia and the South Caucasus tighten coronavirus lockdowns

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YEREVAN/April 5 (The Bulletin) — Battling to stop the spread of the coronavirus, governments in Central Asia and the South Caucasus intensified lockdowns that ban people from leaving their homes.

At least 17 people have died across the region with the COVID-19 disease caused by the coronavirus, although analysts think the real figure could be many more. Health ministries and international donors are now worried that the region’s underfunded and under-resourced hospitals and health systems will buckle if there is a surge in infections.

On March 26, Armenian deputy PM Mher Grigoryan appeared to betray his nervousness about whether Armenia’s health service could cope with rising infections.

“We have an obvious problem, which is outstanding everywhere else in the world and it is important to solve here in Armenia,” he was quoted as saying. “It is the modernisation and re-equipment of the healthcare system. Here, too, we must take measures.”

In the region, only Tajikistan and Turkmenistan have not reported any infections, to the derision of observers who think it is unlikely that either country has escaped the coronavirus that has been ripping across the world since it appeared in central China in December.

Armenia and Kazakhstan have been worst hit by the coronavirus, with 822 and 569 people infected by April 5, but Kyrgyzstan appears to be most vulnerable economically. Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov has already asked for emergency financial support from the IMF.

As for the intensified lockdowns, the Kazakh authorities have told people that they can only leave their homes every other day and in Azerbaijan people have to notify the police via an app or an SMS if they are going out onto the street.

In Armenia, where PM Nikol Pashinyan had only a few weeks ago said that the coronavirus could easily be beaten, the government has ordered all businesses, restaurants and cafes to close until at least April 10.

He has been criticised for holding referendum campaign rallies in March that may have contributed to the spread of the coronavirus.

“Compared to Azerbaijan and Georgia, our corona infection stats are higher. Am I the first to say that the reason for this is the referendum campaign?” said Samvel Grigoryan, a public health analyst.

A referendum on the status of the country’s top judges had been set for April 5. This has now been postponed.

Armenia’s government has said that the rate of infection is slowing, but people told The Bulletin’s correspondent that they are worried.

“We need to obey,” said Margarita Aghayan, 56, who is confined to her two-room apartment in a Yerevan suburb with her husband, her daughter and granddaughter.

“I feel very scared. I feel horror. I am scared of the people who don’t take this seriously.”

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— This story was first published in issue 441 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

COMMENT: Governments will be judged on how they deal with the coronavirus

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MARCH 26 (The Bulletin) — With the global impact and disruption of Covid-19 becoming apparent, it is time to see what the governments of Central Asia and the South Caucasus are made of. Their responses now will forge their reputations. They will be judged.

And, so far, reactions have been wildly different.

Turkmenistan and Tajikistan appear to be pretending that the Covid-19 pandemic is not happening. Neither country has reported cases and in Tajikistan people are being encouraged to continue with their lives as normal. Last weekend thousands of people gathered to celebrate the Persian New Year and President Emomali Rakhmon has barely broken with his official engagements. In Ashgabat, President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has talked up herbal remedies to the pandemic.

Berdymukhamedov and Rakhmon may be the Central Asian versions of Nero. While Rome burnt for a week in 64AD, Emperor Nero fiddled, or at least that is the popular perception.

Elsewhere the reaction of governments to the Covid-19 pandemic has been more mainstream. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia and Armenia have all ordered lockdowns over their main cities and announced economic packages that will support business. Kyrgyzstan has applied to the IMF to help dampen its own Covid-19 epidemic which appears linked to people in the more religious and conservative south of the country returning home from the Hajj in Saudi Arabia.

In Azerbaijan, the approach has veered away from the orthodoxy, as it often does. Instead of offering the government grants and loans favoured by other countries to keep business running and to buy extra supplies and resources for its health service, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev set up a special fund that would accept donations from companies, government agencies and the wealthy.

Never one to miss an opportunity to self-promote, top billing on the website currently goes to Aliyev and his wife, Mehriban, who is also the vice-president, for donating their salaries for 2020 to the fund. The website doesn’t say how large these donations were.

Covid-19 will shrink growth rates and possibly even economies across the region. The people of Central Asia and the South Caucasus are used to big, interventionist and, some would say, authoritarian government. Now these leaders have the opportunity to show their people that this power can be used to good effect in a national emergency.

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— This story was first published in issue 440 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Food prices rise in Turkmenistan because of coronavirus fears

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MARCH 26 (The Bulletin) — Turkmenistan has also not reported any cases of the coronavirus but Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has reported that much like in Tajikistan, food prices have risen sharply. With regards, the economy, Pres. Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov may be more concerned about the fall in the price of oil than about the coronavirus.

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— This story was first published in issue 440 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Coronavirus spreads through Central Asia and South Caucasus

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YEREVAN/March 26 (The Bulletin) — The Covid-19 virus started to take a grip of the Central Asia and South Caucasus region with only Tajikistan and Turkmenistan not reporting any outbreaks.

Worst hit, by some margin, has been Armenia with 290 cases reported by March 26. Officials said that the source of the outbreak was a sewing factory in Yerevan and people arriving from Iran, which has had one of the worst outbreaks in the world.

From sounding blase about the impact of the coronavirus only two weeks ago, Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan has now ordered a lockdown along the same lines as European countries, which is hitting businesses.

“Let’s look at the upcoming week as a unique opportunity to read, self-reflect and plan the future of the Armenian nation,” he said.

Neighbouring Georgia and Azerbaijan have also reported cases of the coronavirus, 77 cases and 80 cases each, but have taken different approaches to dealing with it. The Georgian government has imposed a lockdown in Tbilisi but in Azerbaijan the rules are more relaxed.

In Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan have imposed lockdowns over their largest cities to try to contain the spread of the coronavirus, although Turkmen and Tajik officials have insisted, much to the amazement of many analysts, that they haven’t had any cases.

On March 21, Tajik towns hosted the traditional celebrations to mark the Persian new year Nowruz festival and Turkmen leader Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has talked up the medicinal benefits of various herbs against the coronavirus.

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— This story was first published in issue 440 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin