FEB. 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The CEO of Italian energy company ENI, Paolo Scaroni, flew to Ashgabat to meet with Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. Mr Scaroni talked up the prospects of ENI exploring for oil and gas in the Turkmen sector of the Caspian Sea. Most of Turkmenistan’s main gas projects are currently onshore.
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(News report from Issue No. 170, published on Feb. 5 2014)
JAN. 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Evidence is mounting that Turkmenistan, like neighbouring Uzbekistan, forces people to pick its giant cotton harvests each year.
A report by the opposition Alternative Turkmenistan News (ATN) group said that school children were forced into the cotton fields each year to harvest the crop.
Attention has focused more on Uzbekistan’s use of child labour in its cotton harvest; the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) is supposed to be releasing the results of its investigation later this year into this practise.
But ATN said that the practise is also widespread across the border in Turkmenistan.
Of course, although still important, cotton is not as important to Turkmenistan’s economy as it is to Uzbekistan’s economy. Uzbekistan grows roughly three times the amount of cotton as Turkmenistan.
Even so, Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has made a point of underlining how he has opened up the country and its cotton industry has been no exception. The authorities there want to build new cotton spinning plants and to increase exports of raw cotton overseas.
Perhaps the ILO should also be making plans for a trip to Turkmenistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 169, published on Jan. 29 2014)
JAN. 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan’s president, Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, said he was ending free gas in order to encourage people to consume energy more efficiently. The move is likely to irritate ordinary people who have become used to receiving free gas since 1993.
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(News report from Issue No. 168, published on Jan. 22 2014)
JAN. 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — An autocrat and an eccentric, Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov started 2014 in flamboyant manner.
First, on Jan. 6, a video surfaced on the internet of Mr Berdymukhamedov behind a DJ deck playing his favourite pop songs to an adoring crowd. He relishes the attention, adding backing vocals and a clutch of confident jiving hand movements.
A few days later Mr Berdymukhamedov got back to the more serious business of governance by sacking his gas and banking chiefs.
Since becoming president in December 2006, Mr Berdymukhamedov has earned a reputation as a shrewd single-minded and flamboyant showman.
Turkmenistan has grown rich over the past few years as Mr Berdymukhamedov expands its client list for gas. This makes the sacking of Kakageldy Abdullayev, previously head of Turkmengaz, the more significant development. He had been in the job for a year and was officially sacked for not diversifying the company fast enough. Mr Abdullayev’s replacement is the little-known Charymuhammed Hommadov. Mr Berdymukhamedov also sacked the head of the Central Bank Tuvakmammet Japarov without specifying why.
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(News report from Issue No. 167, published on Jan. 15 2014)
JAN. 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan invited international companies to compete in a tender to build a railway track from Bereket in the west of the country to Etrek on the border with Iran, media reported. The railway will form part of an ambitious project to link Central Asia up with the Persian Gulf.
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(News report from Issue No. 167, published on Jan. 15 2014)
JAN. 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan’s GDP grew at 10.2% in 2013, one of the quickest growth rates in the world, according to the economy ministry. The biggest growth spurt came in the construction sector which grew by 17%. Most of this economic expansion, though, is fuelled by gas exports to China and beyond.
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(News report from Issue No. 167, published on Jan. 15 2014)
DEC. 19 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rights groups criticised Turkmenistan’s parliamentary election, officially heralded as the start of multi-party politics, as mere window dressing. The vote on Dec. 15 was the first time an election in Turkmenistan has been contested by two parties. In reality the opposition party was staunchly pro-president.
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(News report from Issue No. 166, published on Jan. 8 2014)
DEC. 15 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan held a parliamentary election it described as its first multi-party vote. In reality the opposition parties vowed fidelity to Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. Rights groups describe Turkmenistan as one of the most repressive countries in the world.
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(News report from Issue No. 165, published on Dec. 18 2013)
DEC. 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Burnishing Turkmenistan’s image as a major energy producer, Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov flew to Abu-Dhabi for talks with UAE leader Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Turkmenistan has signed major deals with China over the past few years.
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(News report from Issue No. 164, published on Dec. 11 2013)
DEC. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Often dubbed reclusive and authoritarian, Turkmenistan took the rare step of inviting 80 foreign sports journalists to look around its new sports stadium built to host the 2017 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games. Turkmenistan’s main objective, however fanciful, is to host the Olympic Games, one day.
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(News report from Issue No. 163, published on Dec. 4 2013)