Via Silk Road Briefing, an interesting look at the possibility of China joining the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India Pipeline: China has expressed interest in joining the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project, by building a link from Pakistan to China. This could act as alternative to Chinese plans to build a fourth China-to-Turkmenistan pipeline. The China-to-Turkmenistan line has to cross […]
Read more »Via National Interest, a look at Afghanistan’s economic situation: As recently as four years ago, Afghanistan’s war economy was on the brink of collapse when unemployment soared following the departure of thousands of American and foreign forces that had, in effect, created a parallel economy. At the time, the Afghan government had no functioning fiscal […]
Read more »Via The Diplomat, a report on Central Asia’s efforts to actively engage Afghanistan on several fronts: The Central Asia states are redrawing the boundary of their region, so the cartographers will have to run to keep up. “Central Asia” as a defined place of states and borders is a recent idea, dating to the immediate post-Soviet […]
Read more »Via The Times of Central Asia, a report on Iran’s skepticism about TAPI: Iran’s deputy petroleum minister expressed doubts about the probability of completion of Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India (TAPI) gas pipeline and said his country is ready to swap Turkmenistan’s gas destined for Pakistan, Iran’s IRNA news agency reported on April 29. Hamidreza Araqi said that Iran is the […]
Read more »Via The Diplomat, a report that Uzbekistan is Uzbekistan has reportedly agreed to participate in the massive Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline. The news comes as Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov paid a visit to Tashkent on Monday. As the visit began, RFE/RL reported that sources had indicated TAPI was on the agenda, followed by Reutersreporting that Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev […]
Read more »Via The Diplomat, a look at Afghanistan’s struggle to jump-start economic growth while political uncertainty is perhaps at its height: Afghanistan experienced remarkable economic growth for about 10 years leading up to 2012. Average economic growth was recorded at 9.4 percent annually in the period from 2003 to 2012. Per capita income increased more than […]
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