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Agricultural Export

Kazakhstan Agricultural Exports Rise 36% in Early 2026

Kazakhstan’s agricultural exports rose sharply during the first four months of 2026, although the government’s full-year target points to much slower growth over the remainder of the year. Exports of agricultural and processed food products reached $3 billion in January-April, up 36% from $2.2 billion during the same period of 2025, according to figures presented by Agriculture Minister Aidarbek Saparov. The government expects the total to reach $7.2 billion by the end of 2026. More than half of last year’s export earnings, or $3.6 billion, came from processed agricultural products rather than raw commodities. The ministry aims to strengthen that trend by increasing the share of higher value-added food products in total agricultural exports. Food production increased by 14.7% during the first six months of 2026. The government aims to raise processing rates for six key product groups – meat, milk, oilseeds, corn, rice, and buckwheat – from 64% in 2025 to 70% this year. The strong performance followed two years of near-record grain production. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that Kazakhstan will export a record 11 million metric tons of wheat during the 2025-26 marketing year, after shipments rose by more than 30% during its first six months. It forecasts wheat exports falling to 7.5 million metric tons in 2026-27 as production returns toward average levels after two unusually strong harvests. The figures underline the continued importance of grain to Kazakhstan’s agricultural exports, despite the government’s efforts to increase sales of processed food products. The ministry says the government’s priorities remain improving sector efficiency and increasing production of value-added agricultural goods. As previously reported by The Times of Central Asia, Kazakhstan increased revenues from processed agricultural exports by more than one-third in 2025. Agricultural exports to Iran nearly doubled, rising 97% to $238.5 million, although grain accounted for $225.3 million of that total. Agricultural trade with Turkey also increased by 25% during 2025, although the figure covers both Kazakh exports and imports from Turkey.

President Tokayev

Kazakhstan Court Ruling Clears Legal Path for Tokayev to Seek Another Term

Kazakhstan’s Constitutional Court has ruled that President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev may seek another term under the country’s 2026 Constitution, effectively resetting the count created under the previous Basic Law while leaving the single seven-year presidential term formally in place. The ruling, issued on July 7 after Tokayev’s request, addressed whether people who held senior offices under the 1995 Constitution could be elected or appointed to those posts under the new Basic Law, adopted in a March 15 referendum and in force since July 1. The offices covered include the president, the chair and judges of the Constitutional Court, the chair of the Supreme Court, and the prosecutor general. The court said restrictions in the 2026 Constitution are linked only to elections and appointments made under the new constitutional order and laws adopted on its basis. It said the new Constitution contains no provision requiring terms, elections, or appointments under the 1995 Basic Law to be counted when the new limits are applied. The court’s official interpretation says people who held those offices under the 1995 Constitution “may be elected or appointed to the corresponding positions after the 2026 Constitution enters into force.” In practical terms, the ruling removes the main legal barrier that had been assumed to prevent Tokayev from appearing on the presidential ballot again. Tokayev was elected in November 2022 to what was presented as a single, non-renewable seven-year term ending in 2029. He has not announced another run, and the ruling does not set a timetable for a presidential election. Speculation has also continued over whether Tokayev could seek a future international role, including as UN secretary-general. According to political analyst Daniyar Ashimbayev, the Constitutional Court’s clarification resolves a strategic issue over the president’s term of office. He recalled that Tokayev’s 2022 election followed an earlier constitutional reform that introduced the single seven-year presidential term. A later dilemma emerged because the previous constitutional rules would have required elections to be held in December 2028, almost a year before the end of the seven-year mandate. “In the new Constitution, these formulations were changed, but a new question emerged: does the new Constitution require a review of terms in connection with the reset of political institutions? The text itself contained no relevant provisions. At a press briefing on voting day, Tokayev said the next elections would be held in 2029,” Ashimbayev said, adding that Tokayev’s appeal showed that the issue would be handled through constitutional procedure rather than political assumption. The court, he said, indicated that adoption of the new Constitution does not mean the automatic extension of norms contained in the old Constitution or decisions adopted on its basis. “Thus, the single seven-year term is confirmed, but it will be counted from the moment elections are held. The Constitution, however, prohibits holding presidential and parliamentary elections at the same time, which moves the presidential issue to the autumn,” Ashimbayev said. “It is clear that this is about the right, not the obligation, of the incumbent head of state to...

AIRUN CEO Chingiz Arziev on Building Kyrgyzstan’s Sovereign AI

The Times of Central Asia was delighted to interview Chingiz Arziev, CEO of AIRUN a Kyrgyzstan-based company developing AI infrastructure for the Kyrgyz language. AIRUN’s technology includes a large language model, speech recognition, text-to-speech tools, AI translation, and digital avatars designed for use in government, education, media, business, and public services. Chingiz Arziev spoke to TCA about the challenge of building AI for a low-resource language, why digital sovereignty matters for Kyrgyzstan, and how the company hopes to take its experience to other countries facing similar language and technology challenges. TCA: To begin with, can you tell us a little about yourself: where you grew up, what you studied, and how you first became interested in technology? Chingiz Arziev: I was born and raised in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. My interest in technology started very early. Around the age of nine, I discovered design software: Photoshop, Illustrator, and CorelDRAW. I was not only learning how to use them, but also comparing their interfaces and trying to understand what made one product more intuitive than another. At around 14, I became interested in motion design, 3D graphics, and digital sculpting. I studied Adobe After Effects, Blender, and ZBrush. Whatever software I was learning, I was always interested in the same thing: user experience. Already by the age of 16, I had started learning HTML and CSS to begin building websites and landing pages. Looking back, the common thread has always been understanding how technology works and how it can solve real problems for people. TCA: Was there a particular moment when you realized that artificial intelligence could become a serious field for you personally? Chingiz Arziev: I have always been drawn to advanced engineering and emerging technologies. In 2015, I became deeply involved in the blockchain space. The architectures, protocols, and decentralized systems being developed at the time felt completely new and inspiring. But even that did not compare to what happened during the AI boom of 2022. I still remember the day I sent my first prompt to ChatGPT. For me, that was the moment everything changed. I immediately saw the direction technology would take over the next 20 years. After that, I spoke about artificial intelligence everywhere. I talked about how AI would transform industries, reshape professions, automate routine work, and fundamentally change the labor market. Many friends and colleagues thought I was exaggerating. But I had spent years following companies such as Boston Dynamics, Tesla, Unitree, and DJI. Because of that, I saw a broader picture. Artificial intelligence would not develop in isolation. It would advance alongside robotics, autonomous systems, and automation. After sending that first prompt to ChatGPT, I knew I wanted to dedicate my career to artificial intelligence. TCA: How did the idea for AIRUN first come about, and what problem were you trying to solve? Chingiz Arziev: For countries with low-resource languages, the need for sovereign AI has existed for a long time. The challenge was never the idea itself. The challenge was execution, expertise, infrastructure, and...

Infrastructure Finance

Opinion: Central Asia’s Shift from Silk Road Romance to Infrastructure Finance – What the June Forums Are Building

In mid-June, Tashkent and Baku will host two major international finance gatherings within the same regional window: the fifth Tashkent International Investment Forum in Uzbekistan, and the Islamic Development Bank Group’s 2026 Annual Meetings in Azerbaijan. The overlap in timing is useful less as a calendar coincidence than as a signal of how infrastructure, finance, and regional integration are now being discussed together. In Tashkent, the fifth Tashkent International Investment Forum opens under the theme “Investment Resilience: New Frontiers, New Partnerships.” In Baku, the Islamic Development Bank Group will convene delegates from its 57 member countries under the theme “Regional Integration for Sustainable Prosperity.” Add the Astana International Financial Centre’s increasingly active forum calendar, a new cross-border Islamic finance alliance signed in May among regional industry associations, and a stream of connectivity and green investment pledges from recent regional summits, and the wider region looks increasingly focused on turning connectivity talk into investment structures. The more important question is not how much money is being discussed, but what kinds of projects are becoming investable. One answer keeps surfacing: a multi-thousand-kilometer trade route that carries goods from China across Kazakhstan, over the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan, and onward through Georgia and Türkiye to Europe. The Middle Corridor, formally known as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, runs through many of the investment pitches now being made across the region. The forums show how infrastructure, finance, and regional connectivity are increasingly being discussed together. The corridor is one of the clearest tests of whether that agenda can move from conference language into bankable projects. For most of the past century, the world categorized this region under two headings. One is heritage: the caravanserais and blue domes of the old Silk Road. The other is hydrocarbons: the oil and gas beneath the Caspian basin. Both cast the region as a place value came out of or once passed through. The corridor proposes something more ambitious: that value should pass through again, but this time on terms shaped by the region itself. The shift is from selling what lies underground to earning from where the region sits on the map. Freight volumes on the Middle Corridor have risen roughly fivefold over recent years, while transit times have been cut from about a month to roughly two weeks as border procedures and port operations improved. The World Bank’s benchmark study sets out the goal of tripling freight volumes and halving travel time by 2030, and regional projections now point to annual throughput of around ten million tons or more by the end of the decade. For landlocked economies long dependent on a single route to world markets, a second viable artery is less a convenience than a form of strategic insurance. But turning a route on a map into a working corridor requires serious capital. It requires expanded port capacity on the Caspian, additional vessels and ferries, rail upgrades, terminal infrastructure, and the less visible digital and customs systems that allow cargo to clear multiple borders...

Climate Change Adaptation Strategy

Kyrgyzstan Climate Resilience the Target of New Forest Restoration Project

In spring 2026, more than 400,000 forest and fruit tree seedlings were planted over roughly 500 hectares of land across Kyrgyzstan under a project overseen by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The project, Carbon Sequestration through Climate Investments in Forests and Pastures in the Kyrgyz Republic, began in 2023. Financed by the Green Climate Fund, it aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, while supporting climate change mitigation and adaptation. According to FAO in Kyrgyzstan, the community-based planting activities included a wide variety of trees – Tian Shan spruce, juniper, walnut, almond, poplar, apple, apricot and plum. The species were selected because they are well adapted to Kyrgyzstan’s climatic conditions and have high resilience and carbon-sequestration potential. The project gives special attention to strengthening the capacity of local communities. It provides seedlings, fencing materials and, where required, drip irrigation systems, while local communities contribute labor and participate in establishing planting sites. Planting on municipal land is organized by local self-government bodies, while work inside the State Forest Fund is carried out by local forestry units. The four districts selected for the project – Ak-Talaa, Suzak, Toguz-Toro and Uzgen – were chosen because of their high vulnerability to the impacts of climate change in Kyrgyzstan’s Naryn, Jalal-Abad and Osh regions. According to climate observations covering the past 27 years, the average annual temperature in these areas has increased by 1.5°C. Several districts have experienced declining precipitation levels, alongside an increasing frequency of climate-related disasters, including landslides and mudflows. The project is part of a wider effort to help rural communities adapt to climate pressure in Kyrgyzstan. In 2025, TCA reported on the use of artificial glaciers to support farmers in water-scarce areas, where controlled winter ice accumulation can provide additional irrigation water during the growing season. Nor is this Kyrgyzstan’s only collaboration with the FAO on climate and land management. In April 2025, the FAO and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development launched a separate initiative, Greening Kyrgyzstan’s Economy: Know More, Act Better, Enhance Results, which uses geographic information system technology to improve farmland monitoring, support climate-smart agriculture and strengthen food security. Climate concerns have also become increasingly visible around Lake Issyk-Kul, one of Kyrgyzstan’s most important natural landmarks. TCA has reported that melting glaciers, changing precipitation patterns and more frequent extreme weather pose long-term risks the Issyk-Kul basin, with possible consequences for water resources, agriculture, tourism and energy security. Although the latest planting figures concern forests and orchards, the wider project also covers pasture management, a central issue in rural Kyrgyzstan, where overgrazing and land degradation have put pressure on mountain ecosystems. Planned measures include rehabilitating access roads and bridges to remote pastures, building livestock watering points, establishing shelterbelts, developing pasture grass seed nurseries, and introducing rotational grazing practices. The project is expected to sequester more than 19.8 million tons of CO₂ equivalent over a 20-year period. This represents 7.6% of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions and 22.6% of emissions from the agricultural sector. Under the...

CA5+UK

Opinion: UK’s C6 Engagement and the Opportunity for British Geostrategic Renewal

Along with Nicholas Spykman, Sir Halford Mackinder is one of the most pre-eminent thinkers in the field of geopolitics. Whilst today geopolitics is a term used interchangeably with “world affairs,” “international relations,” and “foreign policy,” Spykman and Mackinder used the phrase to describe the narrow academic study of how geography influences international relations and the conduct of states. In the 1904 paper, The Geographical Pivot of History, Mackinder theorized that the key to controlling the balance of power in the world rested in a “heartland” of Eurasia, comprising Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Mackinder described the heartland region as the “pivot region” for regional and global hegemony. The word “pivot” has recently been popularized in international relations, with examples including President Obama’s pivot to the Pacific and Britain’s Indo-Pacific pivot in the 2021 Integrated Review. In 1997, former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski built on Mackinder’s ideas in his work, The Grand Chessboard. Brzezinski defined a geopolitical pivot as being “determined by their geography, which in some cases gives them a special role either in defining access to important areas or in denying resources to a significant player. In some cases, a geopolitical pivot may act as a defensive shield for a vital state or even a region.” To Mackinder and Brzezinski, Central Asia was a crucial geostrategic pivot. Central Asia - comprising the five states of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan, collectively termed the C5 - is located between China, Russia, Iran, and Afghanistan. Thus, the near abroad of the region is defined by conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Iran and Israel/U.S., and between Taliban-run Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pragmatic engagement is a necessity for the C5 but has not stopped them from pursuing greater diversification in security and economic arrangements, and they remain committed to U.S.-led diplomatic initiatives. Faced with a regionally assertive superpower in China, risks created by Russia’s war in Ukraine, theocratic Iran, and the Taliban in Afghanistan, Central Asia has continued to show its desire to build and deepen its economic and security partnerships from beyond traditional powers – such as China and Russia – to states in the Gulf, the Caucasus, Western Europe, and elsewhere. The United Kingdom has emerged as a new and important partner. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised concerns in the Central Asian states about its regional revisionism, territorial ambitions, and Putin’s reconstruction of the Soviet Union. In 2014, Putin credited Nursultan Nazarbayev with having “created a state in a territory that had never had a state before,” adding that “the Kazakhs never had any statehood.” The remarks sparked anger in Kazakhstan and fed concern about Moscow’s view of post-Soviet sovereignty. Finally, Putin said that it would be best for Kazakhstan to “remain in the greater Russian world.” In The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski predicted that “Russia without Ukraine can still strive for imperial status, but it would then become a predominantly Asian imperial state, more likely to be drawn into debilitating conflicts with aroused Central Asians.” Central Asia has been a...