Publications

Armenia is going to invite cryptocurrency miners to install their coin minting hardware in an old thermal power plant. The TPP will be decommissioned, and the government intends to rent it out to industrial companies, including mining enterprises. Saudi Arabia's ACWA Power and Azerbaijan's Ministry of Energy broke ground on a 1.125 billion Saudi riyal ($300 million) 240-megawatt wind power plant that will contribute to the Central Asian country's target generating 30 per cent of its energy through renewables by 2030. It will contribute around 3.7 per cent of energy to the country's total national grid capacity and power 300,000 households while offsetting 400,000 tonnes of emissions, Acwa Power said on Friday.

Italy was Azerbaijan`s top export market among the European Union countries last year, according to the State Customs Committee. The volume of export with Italy made $ 9.243.5 billion. Georgian prime minister Irakli Garibashvili met Arielle Malard de Rothschild, Managing Director at Rothschild & Co, with the meeting reviewing plans of a government initiative of transforming the country into a regional financial hub. Rothschild & Co is one of the world's largest independent economic advisory groups with a 200-year history. The company provides strategy and financing advice and investment and wealth management solutions to large institutions, individuals, and governments worldwide. It has a global network of 3,800 colleagues in more than 50 countries. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) invested $630 million in 18 projects in Kazakhstan in 2021, reported the bank’s press service. Forty per cent of projects are aimed at promoting the green economy. The EBRD will also support Kazakhstan in implementing its long-term cooperation strategy to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. Overall, the bank has invested more than $10.3 billion in the country’s economy through 295 projects.

At today’s Central Asia-India Summit, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev suggested building an interregional transport and logistics consortium. For the past ten years, Kazakhstan invested some USD 30 bln in the national transport infrastructure development.
At the beginning of January, President Sadyr Japarov visited the Kumtor gold mine and got acquainted with Kumtor Gold Company JSC (KGC) activities. He stated that progress had been made in the negotiation process with the Canadian company, and the discussion of a settlement agreement was nearing completion. The Canadian company also made a statement outlining the terms of the deal. Among them, in particular, is the transfer of the stake in the company owned by Kyrgyzstan to Centerra. Kumtor Gold Company is valued on the London Stock Exchange at around $3 billion. Tajikistan started working on a connection to the integrated energy system of Central Asia even though the failure in its operation occurred earlier today. The company plans to complete activities by the end of 2022.
Afghanistan has re-emphasised its commitment to start Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) project soon. Meanwhile, Afghanistan is part of the Turkmen gas pipeline project to Pakistan and India. It is expected that Afghanistan will earn about USD 400 million a year for allowing transit across its territory. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev chaired a videoconference on the upcoming work in the privatization of state property objects this year. In particular, there are 210 in the oil and gas industry, 152 in the communications sector, 114 in state commercial banks, 44 in the chemical industry, and 28 objects to be sold in the energy industry. There are about 170 empty objects that have not been sold for years on the balance of the regional hokimiyats.

The Ministry of Energy announced the launch of the tender stage (Request for qualification (RFQ)) for independent electricity producers (investors-developers) for the 300 MW Guzar photovoltaic station (PVP) construction project. This project is the second part of the program for constructing solar photovoltaic plants with a total capacity of 1 GW. The Government of Uzbekistan is implementing with the support of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).