In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the GDP growth rate increased by 5.8%. Foreign trade developed dynamically as well.
In 2020, the global economy faced a challenging and very complicated situation. Nearly all states suffered economic damage from the novel coronavirus pandemic. In the face of these challenges, Turkmen economy showed resilience and continued to develop. The experts from the CentralAsia.news editorial staff provided their brief summaries of the situation.
“Turkmenistan’s industrial sector is developing dynamically. Much work has been done to switch all sectors of the economy to large-scale advanced production. The chemical and polymer industries are enhancing their capacity,” an economic observer for Turkmenistan Valentin Trapeznikov noted.
In January-November 2020, the GDP growth rate increased by 5.8%, and the retail trade turnover grew by 18% as compared with the same period of 2019.
“Against the background of the decline of GDP in the western countries, Turkmen economy looks much more preferable. This achievement became possible thanks to the timely measures taken by the Government,” Chairman of the Union of Economists of Turkmenistan Yuri Aronskiy said.
In early July, the Cabinet of Ministers adopted the “National Programme for 2020-2021 to mitigate the impact of global economic crises on the national economy and to support sustainable economic growth” the expert added.
Foreign trade developed dynamically as well. The country boosted exports of non-primary and intermediate goods, namely, electricity, fertilizers, textiles, petrochemical products and gasoline from natural gas.
In January-November 2020, the State Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange held 257 trading sessions and concluded 26,083 contracts.
Trapeznikov reviewed business development activities in 2020 and noted that the share of private enterprises increased from 65.7% to 71.2%.
Last year, Turkmenistan earned over $ 4.13 billion from exports of natural gas and petrochemical products. In January-November 2020, 7.1 billion manats (about US$ 2 billion) were invested to develop Turkmenistan’s oil and gas industry.
