Tajikistan is the only post-Soviet Central Asian republic that does not belong to the Turkic world. Tajikistan’s neighbors are Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The population of the republic is more than 10 million people (mainly Tajiks belonging to the Iranian peoples). At the same time, Tajiks are the second most numerous ethnicity in neighboring Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. “The mountains of Tajikistan are home to the entire Mendeleev table.”…

In mid-2023, as part of its preparation of the country’s 2024 budget, Mongolia’s Ministry of Finance prepared a number of documents containing assessments of national economic development prospects for the next three years.  These documents, which are available on Mongolia’s impressively comprehensive official database, allow observers to assess the Mongolian government’s views on their country’s development potential…

On March 21, 2024, in a formal event held at Astana Square in Almaty, the President of Kazakhstan, Kasym-Jomart Tokayev, congratulated all Kazakhstanis on the holiday of Nauryz. In his speech in the square, the President announced four strategically important national development projects, the promotion of which he designated as a key socio-economic priority for the republic in 2024. These are the reconstruction and modernization of the country’s transport infrastructure and heat and power network…

On 11-12 March, President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev paid a state visit to Azerbaijan, during which he met with the head of the Caspian state – I. Aliyev.  Another important bilateral event that took place during these two days was the first meeting of the Kazakh-Azerbaijani Supreme Interstate Council.

On February 7-8, 2024, the President of the Federal Republic of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier paid a visit to Ulaanbaatar. In the course of the visit, the senior German politician held talks with Mongolia’s President, Prime Minister, and the Speaker of the State Great Khural, Mongolia’s Parliament. He was met at the airport by Mongolia’s Foreign Minister…

On March 15, 2024, the foreign ministers of Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan met in Baku. The main outcome of the trilateral negotiations was the signing of the so-called “Baku Declaration,” in which the parties defined the main directions of cooperation development. The meeting was held on the sidelines of the XI Global Baku Forum…

According to the Statistical Service of Kazakhstan, the total volume of goods transported by rail between Kazakhstan and China reached 23 million tons as early as 2022 and grew by a record 22 percent last year. In view of this high volume of freight traffic and the clear upward trend, the Kazakh authorities are having to invest heavily in the development of new railroads in order to serve the growing freight volumes and enable the rapid and efficient delivery of goods through the country…

In previous articles we have looked at the process of increasing European engagement in Inner Asia through bilateral initiatives. This time, the reader will get an overview of the interaction between the parties in the framework of the European Global Gateway initiative. On 25-26 October, Brussels hosted the Global Gateway Forum, which was soon described by journalists as “an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative”. It is noteworthy that it took place only a week…

Mongolia adopted its 2024 budget law on October 1, 2023. As part of the preparations for the budget law, an extensive preparatory review of the 2023 figures was performed. These were correlated with the spending plans for 2024, 2025 and 2026, and the results were summarized in a special report published by Mongolia’s Ministry of Finance. The report is primarily a breakdown of Mongolia’s draft budget for 2024. As for the budget itself, the following points made in the report are worthy of note…

The ninth State Great Khural elections in the history of democratic Mongolia will be held this year, on June 28. They will be unprecedented in a number of respects, and their results promise significant differences from the country’s “classic” indicators. As early as 2023, the Mongolian authorities carried out extensive work to prepare the country’s legislative framework for the upcoming elections, reflecting all their new parameters and principles in the relevant legislation…

The Prime Minister of Mongolia, Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene, attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, from 15 to 19 January. This article provides an overview of the Mongolian representative’s activities at the event – with a slightly more detailed analysis of the objectives of the official meetings he held during these four days. On 4 January 2024, it became known that the country’s Prime Minister would be attending the Davos Forum: the announcement of this decision…

The UN Security Council held its regular meeting on Afghanistan on 6 March. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Roza Otunbayeva, made a report and provided an update on political, humanitarian and human rights developments in the country since 1 December 2023. It is recalled that UNAMA’s mandate expires on 17 March this year. This fact has prompted the UN Security Council…