The economic role and prospects of Central Asia are not yet fully understood in the modern world, the EDB wrote in its report “Central Asia: A New Look”.
To a large extent, due to inertia, the region is still not perceived by the international community as a significant player on the economic map of the world, the report says, Ritmeurasia wrote.
The region is changing, and today its role needs to be assessed in a new way. The states of Central Asia have made significant progress in their development over the past 20 years. The share of Central Asia in world GDP at PPP has increased by 1.8 times since 2000. The states have established themselves economically and have serious growth prospects. The cumulative GDP of Central Asia was $347 billion in 2021. Over the past two decades, the GDP of the countries of Central Asia has increased more than seven times.
Mutual trade in the region is growing and its share in the total trade turnover of the Central Asian countries is consistently increasing, amounting to 9.9% in 2021, the report notes.
Uzbekistan has given a significant impetus to the development and increase in the volume of intra-regional trade after 2017. However, the trade of the countries of Central Asia is mainly connected with Kazakhstan, which forms 80.9% of the total volume of mutual trade in the region.
The pace of development of regional trade affects investment cooperation. The priorities of economic cooperation between the countries of the region are infrastructural development and industrial cooperation. Intra-regional cooperation will help strengthen industrial production and food security in the region.
CentralasianLIGHT.org
November 17, 2022