As we have already reported, the 14th International Conference “Turkmentel-2021”, dedicated to the development of the sphere of telecommunications, telemetry, information technologies and television and radio broadcasting equipment, started today in Ashgabat.

Chairman of the Agency “Turkmenaragatnashyk” Hajimurat Hudaygulyev spoke at the plenary session “International cooperation in the digital economy - regulation and legislation - foreign direct investment” with a key speech, in which he briefly outlined the vision of the current state and prospects for the further development of the telecommunications industry in Turkmenistan.

He also made proposals for promising areas of mutually beneficial investment cooperation in the digital economy, in particular:

• introduction of electronic government (SMEV - Systems of interdepartmental electronic interaction, ESIA - a unified system of identification and authentication),
• creation of data centers;
• a project for the construction of a fiber-optic communication line between Turkmenbashi (Turkmenistan) - Siazan (Azerbaijan) along the bottom of the Caspian Sea.

As he noted, the telecommunications sector of Turkmenistan is developing at an accelerated pace thanks to the grandiose reforms initiated by President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov.

The “Turkmenaragatnashyk” agency has launched large projects on the technical support for the implementation of the assigned tasks and the formation of an infrastructure corresponding to their scale.

Hudaygulyev, in particular, noted that the Agency, together with the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), is implementing a number of projects totaling 273 million US dollars.

One of them is aimed at developing mobile communications in the country. Taking into account the growing demands of the population, operators will enter the full and widespread provision of Turkmenistan with mobile communications, including 4G, and in the near future, 5G, high-speed Internet and other mobile communication services. Work is also underway to expand and modernize the multiservice data transmission network.

The chairman recalled that since February of this year, telecommunication operators of Turkmenistan have significantly reduced tariffs for Internet services, which significantly expands access to information resources of the global network.

Particular attention is paid to increasing the transit bandwidth of the Internet stream. In the last three years alone, the total volume of purchased international Internet channels has increased tenfold.

Eight interstate fiber-optic directions of information transmission have been established in Turkmenistan.

At the beginning of this year, two more international junctions between Turkmenistan and Afghanistan were commissioned, and the second junction between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan was put into operation.

During the state visit of the President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev to Turkmenistan, an Agreement was signed on the equipment of another - an international fiber-optic communication interface.

Also, work is underway by the telecommunication company “Turkmentelecom” and the Limited Liability Company “Azertelecom” on the project for the construction of a fiber-optic communication line between Turkmenbashi (Turkmenistan) - Siazan (Azerbaijan) along the bottom of the Caspian Sea.

The Agency's plans include meeting the needs of the rural population, agricultural enterprises, local governments and social infrastructure in the most modern and high-quality information and telecommunication services, Hudaygulyev said.