Publications

Russian tech giant Yandex launched food delivery service Yandex Eats in Armenia, delivering on a promise to develop its e-commerce offering after selling some other business lines to rival VK. Yandex last month agreed to sell its news aggregator, content platform Zen and homepage yandex.ru to state-controlled VK in a move that is expected to tighten the government's grip on the internet.

Azerbaijan has increased the trade turnover with Italy by 6.4 Bln Usd in the first seven months of 2022. In January-July, the trade turnover between the two countries amounted to 11 Bln Usd, with exports accounting for 10.9 Bln Usd and imports for 172 Mln Usd. Thus, Italy was also Azerbaijan's largest trade partner during the reporting period. In 2021, the trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Italy amounted to 4.6 Bln Usd.

EBRD vows “continued support” after investing 4.9 Bln Euro in 270 projects in Georgia. Kazakhstan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) agreed to implement investment projects worth 900 Mln Usd in different sectors of the economy. Despite the global crisis, the inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country in the first quarter of this year increased by 54 percent, reaching 6.8 Bln Usd.

Kazakh PM and Eni Management discuss a plan to build a new gas processing plant. Kazakh Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov reaffirmed his government's full support for the Italian Eni giant consortium's plan to build a one billion cubic meter gas processing plant in Kashagan with the QazaqGaz national company. At the meeting also participated Eni Chief Operating Officer Guido Brusco and Director for Exploration and Production Luca Vignati. The CEO of the Saudi Fund for Development, Sultan Al-Marshad, laid the foundation stone for the project to rehabilitate and expand the General Children's Emergency Hospital in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek. SFD will finance the project with a 30 Mln Usd soft development loan. The funding will also cover medical and non-medical equipment, furniture for the surgery building, advisory services, and supervising implementation.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved an additional $38 million in grant funding for a project to rehabilitate and expand the water supply and sanitation infrastructure in Dushanbe, according to a press release from this regional financial institution.
Iran’s trade with Turkmenistan is on pace to double this year. The exchange between the two countries during the first six months of 2022 amounted to 233 Mln Usd. By comparison, trade during all of 2021 amounted to 227 Mln usd.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a 150 Mln Usd loan and a 3 Mln Usd grant to help improve food and water security in Uzbekistan through better land and water resources management for improved agricultural productivity. The project will help improve on-farm water management, introduce technology, and scale up practices to increase water productivity.

Mubadala Investment Company (Mubadala) and Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (Taqa) have signed agreements to invest in privatizing two gas-fired power generation plants in the Talimarjan power complex in Uzbekistan. The binding contracts will see Mubadala and TAQA each acquire a 40 percent stake in two gas-fired power plants with a combined capacity of 1.6 gigawatts (GW) and take on associated operations and maintenance activities. Talimarjan Issiqlik Elektr Stansiyasi JSC will retain each plant's remaining 20 percent stake.

Uzbekistan's road map for future investors. Uzbekistan has exceeded financial predictions despite the pandemic and recent global economic crises. In 2022, according to the World Bank's report in June, the country's GDP per capita rose to 2.100 Usd, a rise of 4.3 percent. The World Bank noted that GDP growth in 2023 could be 5.3 percent.