TCA
KHUJAND, Tajikistan (TCA) — The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, says it is providing a $2.5 million loan in local currency to LLC MDO Arvand, one of Tajikistan’s leading microfinance institutions, as part of an effort to support home ownership and drive economic growth in the Central Asian country.
TCA
NUR-SULTAN (TCA) — The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), in partnership with the Green Climate Fund (GCF), is stepping up its efforts to support renewables in Kazakhstan with a loan of up to US$ 6.4 million to finance a new 10 MW solar plant in the Zhanakorgan District in southern Kazakhstan, the Bank said on September 26.
TCA
ASHGABAT (TCA) — Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov said that the country’s single-chamber parliament, the Mejlis, will be merged with the People’s Council to form a two-chamber parliament, Turkmen state media reported.
Berdymukhammedov said at a People’s Council meeting on September 25 that he had signed a decree on the creation of a constitutional commission that will outline the ways to merge the two bodies by the People’s Council’s next meeting in 2020.
Berdymukhammedov said that the move is needed “to serve the interests of all social levels of the country,” adding that the People’s Council will be the reformed parliament’s upper chamber.
The People’s Council (Halk Maslahaty) in the tightly controlled Turkmenistan was created in 2017 on the basis of the Elderlies’ Council. Berdymukhammedov is the Council’s chairman.
The chairman of the Supreme Court, the parliamentary speaker and some lawmakers, members of the government, the prosecutor-general, the chairman of the State Security Council, chiefs and members of regional councils and regional representatives picked by local bodies are among the members of the Council.
The move by the authoritarian leader of the former Soviet republic comes amid economic hurdles caused in part to unsuccessful energy deals and low global prices for natural gas, Turkmenistan’s main export, RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service reports.
At the Council meeting, Berdymukhammedov was introduced as “an honorable elder of the nation” and received a corresponding badge, document and flowers while wearing the Turkmen national costume.
Government critics and human rights groups say Berdymukhammedov has suppressed dissent and made few changes in the restrictive country since he came to power after the death of autocrat Saparmurat Niyazov in 2006.
TCA
NUR-SULTAN (TCA) — Italian energy company Eni, through its local subsidiary ArmWind LLP, a joint venture between Eni and General Electric, has been awarded a 48 MW wind power project as a result of the online reverse auction for Wind Power Plants in the Kazakhstan Northern Zone, the company said. This was the third auction held in the country, after the two previous sessions held in 2018. The project, located in the proximity of Badamsha village, in Kazakhstan’s Aktobe region, represents the extension of the Badamsha 1 48 MW wind farm currently under construction, which marked the first Eni large scale investment in wind technology.
TCA
NUR-SULTAN (TCA) — In the framework of the EU funded Programme Central Asia Invest – Policy Component – implemented by the OECD, the first workshop on “Enhancing the Legal Environment for Business in Central Asia – focus on Kazakhstan” took place on September 25 in Nur-Sultan. The event was dedicated to define priority areas of the legal environment which have a direct impact on the business climate and support further their development by the Government in a way which is conducive to investments, the Delegation of the European Union to Kazakhstan reported.
TCA
NUR-SULTAN (TCA) — Kazakhstan is set to play a pivotal role in promoting transcontinental trade as a member of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union and a reliable partner of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said at the General Debate of the 74th UN General Assembly in New York on September 24, China’s Xinhua news agency reported.
Close and constructive political dialogue among all five Central Asian countries will be instrumental for trade, economic, investment and people-to-people interaction, Tokayev said, voicing his conviction that Central Asia “is becoming a global stakeholder”.
On the same day, speaking at the Fourth Meeting of Speakers of Eurasian Countries’ Parliaments held in the Kazakh capital, Nur-Sultan,
First President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev said that his country supports the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as it is beneficial to the country’s development.
He said the number of containers transported from the Pacific Ocean to Europe through Kazakhstan and Russia are increasing every year, which means that “Kazakhstan has become a transit country effectively connecting Asia and Europe, the Northern and Southern parts of Eurasia.”
Proposed by China in 2013 to promote trans-continental connectivity for common growth, the BRI involves infrastructure development, trade and investment facilitation and people-to-people exchanges.
Kazakhstan has built and renovated 15,000 km of roads and railways in a very short period of time, which helps the land-locked nation connect to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and the Gulf, the first president said.
