Economic observer for Turkmenistan Valentin Trapeznikov announced data on the growth of the country’s exports in the first five months of 2023.
In the summer of 2022, Turkmenistan, like many other countries, began to gradually lift pandemic restrictions, including those related to trade and economic relations with other countries, in this regard, the volume of foreign trade began to grow again and now the indicators are gradually returning to the pre-pandemic level of 2019 of the year. Valentin Trapeznikov, an economic observer for Turkmenistan, spoke to CentralAsia.news about the growth factors and structural changes in the country’s exports.
The main importers of Turkmen products are China, Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan and Iran. Turkmenistan also exports to Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan and a number of other countries of the CIS, Europe and Asia.
In the first five months of 2023, the volume of foreign trade turnover of Turkmenistan amounted to more than 8 billion dollars, which is 8 percent more than the same period last year. At the same time, for 8 months of 2019, the volume of foreign trade turnover amounted to 11 billion dollars, and for all twelve months of 2022 – 20 billion. Thus, in the future, the volume of foreign trade of Turkmenistan in the current year has every chance of exceeding the figures of both the previous year and 2019. This clearly demonstrates the positive dynamics of the development of the economy of Turkmenistan and foreign trade in particular.
The restoration of trade relations with external partners of Turkmenistan made it possible for the period from January to May of this year to increase the volume of exports of Turkmen products to $5 billion, which is 3.5 percent more than the same period in 2022.
Among the main export goods of Turkmenistan in the first place is natural gas (more than 77.5 percent of the country’s total exports). In the context of a gradually growing global demand for energy carriers, the volume of exports of Turkmen gas in January-May 2023 increased by an average of 14.8 percent compared to last year’s figures.
In second place in terms of exports are oil products – gasoline, gas-gasoline, petroleum coke, polymers, jet fuel. For the first five months of this year, these products were sold abroad for more than 480 million dollars.
The developed electric power industry of Turkmenistan makes it possible not only to provide electricity to its own population and enterprises, but also to export energy to neighboring countries. The volume of electricity sales by Turkmenistan also continues to grow: in the period from January to May, 10.8 percent more electricity was sold than in the same period in 2022, which is about $146 million.
Turkmenistan continues to demonstrate a steady growth in exports of its food products to neighboring countries. Thus, Turkmenistan is becoming one of the largest suppliers of tomatoes in the Commonwealth: for the reporting period of 2023, they were sold abroad in the amount of $78.7 million, which is an average of 22 percent more than last year.
The volumes of deliveries abroad from Turkmenistan of products of the chemical industry, most of which are mineral fertilizers, are growing. Thus, for five months of the year, the volume of exports of fertilizers exceeded 76 million dollars.
Among other indicators of growth in exports of Turkmen products, the following facts can be noted:
– polymer products (including pipes and hoses) sold by 38.5% more;
– plastic products – by 66.7%;
– light industry products (cotton yarn, fabrics, finished textiles, shoes, leather, wool) were sold in the amount of about 200 million dollars.
The economy of Turkmenistan, as can be seen from the example of foreign trade volume indicators, is not only recovering confidently after a period of significant decline in activity in 2020-2021, but is also diversifying towards expanding the list of trading partners and the list of exported goods.
/// This is cross post from CentralAsia.news — Originally published at https://centralasia.news/23187-trapeznikov-obemy-vneshnej-torgovli-turkmenistana-prodolzhili-rost.html
English language translation by nCa — 2 August 2023
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