Catalog

Turkey Ties
ADB Review [ October 2005 ]

Since independence, Central Asian countries have resumed trade along the ancient Silk routes to the west. Turkmenistan’s growing ties with Turkey are an example

By Ian Gill, (igill@adb.org)
Principal External Relations Specialist

ASHGABAT, TURKMENISTAN

The stillness of Turkmenistan’s blazing desert is broken by a rumbling sound. Out of the empty expanse, a giant Turkish truck suddenly appears and thunders past. It is a moment so brief and incongruous that it later seems like a mirage.

Yet Turkish trucks are an increasingly common sight here—and other parts of Central Asia—as old Silk Road trade links with Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) and Europe are being reestablished following the opening up of international borders since independence.

PARTNERSHIP The Turks have brought hightech machines into this cotton factory in Ashgabat: the labor and raw materials are Turkmen (above); students at a computer class in Merv: globalization is coming slowly (below)

Turkmenistan’s growing trade with Turkey builds on deep historical, linguistic, and cultural foundations. The ruined palaces and mosques of the southern city of Merv, also known as Mary, testify to its former glory as a capital of the Seljuk Empire. Descendants of the Seljuk Turks helped found the Ottoman Empire.

Trade flows along two main routes, either along the southern road through Iran or via the northern road through Turkmenbashi and across the Caspian Sea by ferry to Baku and Georgia. Although largely a desert country, Turkmenistan has plenty to trade, with large reserves of oil and natural gas. It is also one of the world’s top cotton producers.

Under the long-time leadership of Saparmurat Niyazov—President since 1990 and communist party chief for the previous decade—however, Turkmenistan has been slowest among the Central Asian economies to reform. Numerous trade barriers hamper it from trading more effectively with the wider world.

All this throws Turkey’s role in the country’s development into sharp relief. Excluding Turkmenistan’s gas exports to Russia and the Ukraine, Turkey is its largest commercial partner. Trade between the two has risen by several multiples, especially in imports of Turkish goods. Yimpas, the largest and most modern department store in Ashgabat, has a large range of Turkish products.

“Three quarters of what you see here are Turkish products,” says the store’s products manager, Bekir Adjun. He adds that sales have risen steadily since the store opened in 2000. Turkmen exports—mainly textiles and electricity to Turkey—are not lagging either. Last year, exports to Turkey nearly doubled compared with 2003.

CUSTOMERS in a Turkish department store, where a wide range of goods are on offer (above); ties are growing between Turkmenistan and Turkey as shown by this Turkish department store, one of the biggest in Ashgabat (below)

Turkey is helping build Turkmenistan’s fledgling manufacturing sector. At the Turkmenbashi Textile Complex, Turkish entrepreneurs invested $170 million in heavily automated plants that produce cotton products such as clothes and sheets. The joint venture between Turkey and Turkmenistan started production in early 2002.

Speaking above the whir of machines, General Director Izzet Pekdogan says the complex exports 90% of its goods. The bulk, 85%, goes to the United States and the rest, to Europe. Despite the high level of mechanization, the factory engages over 3,000 women in a land of high unemployment.

One of the women working among the numerous assembly lines has been with the factory since it started. “My husband and I have four children,” says Nurtach Babaeva, 40. “I contribute a lot to my family’s needs.”

Altogether, some 200 Turkish firms are active in Turkmenistan’s construction, textile, and food sectors.

Turkish contractors have built much of the country’s infrastructure, including roads, telecommunications, airport, hotels, and factories. Apart from one prominent French firm, they dominate the construction sector.

Turkmenistan would also like to add Turkey—and others—to its list of buyers of natural gas, but this involves building pipelines under the Caspian Sea, and legal disputes over territoriality between countries bordering the sea deter such ventures.

Turkmenistan is less open than other Central Asian economies, but globalization may be coming slowly. Outside Merv, camels graze in the shadow of a mosque from a bygone era. But in the city, in a small computer training center, half a dozen pupils—mainly young women—are staring at screens and tapping at keyboards. The teacher says this is among a handful of such schools and that it already has a waiting list of trainees.

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