Page 21 - Small Stans Outlook 2024

Arkadag.
Turkmenistan’s Balkan Shipyard and Korea Marine Equipment Association (KOMEA) recently signed a $42mn contract for the design and joint construction of 12 multi-purpose carrier class universal vessels.
Also, South Korea's Daewoo Engineering & Construction Co (Daewoo E&C) said in early November that it had opened a branch in Ashgabat. The company was hoping to complete deals for two major fertiliser plants, while it was reportedly contemplating involvement in the second phase of the Arkadag Smart City scheme.
6.0 Energy & Power
6.1 Energy & power - Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan in the summer of 2023 applied a three-year state of emergency to its energy sector.
The situation with power outages and blackouts, and the projections for power demand and supply, have reached the point where the government believes special powers are needed to accelerate the expansion of the country’s electricity generation capacity.
Hydroelectric output last year was substantially hit by drought related to the climate crisis, although Bishkek is anyway betting on more hydro to help resolve its power deficit.
In November, the World Bank approved $18.3mn in additional financing for the ongoing Central Asia South Asia Electricity Transmission and Trade (CASA-1000) project for the Kyrgyz Republic.
That will help with domestic electricity distribution but the CASA-1000 ambition to facilitate the export of 1,300 MW of surplus hydropower from the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan to Afghanistan and Pakistan will likely remain out of reach while Afghanistan remains an unstable country. Attracting financing for the required infrastructure rollout in Afghanistan may prove impossible while the security of the investment cannot be sufficiently guaranteed.
Efforts, meanwhile, at finding foreign creditors who will exchange debt in return for stakes in Kyrgyzstan’s green energy transition have so far not proved fruitful.
21 Small Stans 2023
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