Page 10 - bneIntelliNews Small Stans & Mongolia Outlook 2025

geopolitical risks and climate challenges manageable in the near term, the board added, forecasting economic growth in 2025 would moderate slightly to 6.7%, with the rate of inflation expected to stay close to the central bank’s target of 6(±2)%.
Tajikistan’s external current account, said the board, was expected to shift to a small deficit in 2025 as financial inflows gradually begin to normalise following the strong performance of recent years. The fiscal deficit was projected to remain within the long-term anchor of 2.5% of GDP, ensuring a continued decline in public debt.
In their conclusions, the board added: “Pressing ahead with broad-based SOE reforms is critical to mitigate fiscal risks and create space for private sector-led growth. Continued effort to improve the financial position of the state electricity generation company is essential to expand the role of the hydropower sector as a source of sustainable, green growth. Enhancing SOE governance and oversight can go a long way in raising productivity to unlock the economy’s long-term potential and promote more diversified and inclusive growth.”
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said in December that it expected Tajikistan’s economic growth to hit 8.4% in 2024 on strong remittances and gold exports. Low global commodity prices benefited Tajikistan in 2024, where inflation for the first three quarters was 3.5%, well below the central bank’s target, it added.
In late September, Moody's Ratings affirmed the Government of Tajikistan's issuer and senior unsecured ratings at B3 and changed the outlook to positive from stable.
Looking longer term, the World Bank has warned Tajikistan that its growth model has reached its limits. The country’s private sector is underdeveloped, the economy lacks diversification and significant foreign investment is not found outside the mining sector, the institution said in a recent report.
3.0 Turkmenistan
3.1 Politics, major themes – Turkmenistan
Despite some progress in diversifying its economy, Turkmenistan remains dangerously reliant on its huge exports of gas piped to China, and, politically speaking, the country’s regime is underpinned by preserving the flow of riches deriving from that energy relationship.
No doubt aware of the precariousness of this situation, the Berdimuhamedov regime continues to cast around for new gas export markets, a search that has been made that much more urgent by sanctioned Russia’s emergence as
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