The economic expert of the CentralAsia.news portal Valentin Trapeznikov presented another review on the economic indicators of Turkmenistan for the outgoing year. In his opinion, 2021 for our country was marked by successes in social and economic development.

Growth of macro indicators

“In 2021, the economy of Turkmenistan shows pronounced trends of dynamic development, as well as structural changes in the gross domestic product (GDP) in favor of the real sector of the economy - an increase in the share of commodity-producing industries.

First of all, this is reflected in the growth of the main macroeconomic indicators. So, if in January-March this year the GDP growth rate was 5.9%, in the third quarter they increased to 6.2%.”

The growth rate of the gross value added of industry in the third quarter of 2021 amounted to 8.6% (last year - 5.5% in the first quarter).

Industry dynamics

A similar indicator in agriculture for the same period increased from 3.1% to 4.0%. There was a decrease in the growth rates in trade - from 10.5% to 9.0%, transport and communications - from 4.7% to 4.5%, in the sphere of other services - from 6.2% to 5.9%.

The share in the GDP of other sectors of the economy decreased: for construction - from 8.3% to 7.9%, transport and communications - from 12.3% to 10.5%, trade and other services - from 23.2% and 24.1% to 20.1% and 21.0%, respectively. The reason for these trends is restrictive measures in connection with the coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic also negatively affected the dynamics of Turkmenistan's foreign trade in the first quarter of this year, foreign trade turnover, exports and imports were 13-14% lower than in 2020.

Timely measures

“In the future, thanks to the measures developed on the instructions of President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov on customs, epidemiological and transport regulation of foreign trade operations, the situation began to gradually improve. At the end of the second quarter, foreign trade indicators stabilized and already exceeded the level of 2020.”

Already in the third quarter of this, foreign trade turnover exceeded 10.5 billion US dollars, export volumes reached about 6.2 billion US dollars, and imports - more than 4.3 billion US dollars, which is 14.6%, 23.0% and 4.4%., respectively, higher than in 2020.

These data indicate that the economy of Turkmenistan demonstrates good resistance to negative external influences, as well as to respond promptly to changing circumstances using the basic industries of the real sector and foreign economic partnership.