ASHGABAT (TCA) — At an extended meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers on January 13, Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov summed up the country’s results in 2016 and outlined development prospects for 2017.
The President said the country has finished last year with good results, and Turkmenistan’s GDP grew 6.2 percent in 2016, the State News Agency of Turkmenistan reported.
Berdymukhammedov named economic diversification and intensification of industries among the objectives for 2017, which is a way to ensure a high dynamics of the country’s economic growth.
The President stressed the need to gradually reduce the raw material orientation of the Turkmen economy, focusing on import substitution, strengthening the position of domestic products in the world market, focusing on production of high-quality products in the processing industry, services, transport and communication sectors.
The heads of the Turkmen oil and gas sector were instructed by the President to continue diversifying the export routes for Turkmen energy resources, accelerate the implementation of the Natural Gas Pipeline Project Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India, and to work on increasing production volumes and exports of liquefied natural gas.
The Head of State instructed to continue the reform of the agricultural sector, setting an objective for 2017 to produce 1.6 million tons of wheat and 150,000 tons of cotton, increase the production of livestock products, vegetables and melons, grapes, fruit and berries, and more widely introduce conservation technologies.
The President stressed that it is necessary to begin a phased transfer of unprofitable farmers associations to rent relations, by leasing land to farmers for a period of 50 years or more.
