Central Asia, Afghanistan and Azerbaijan to reduce barriers to trade and transport using UN legal instruments, standards and recommendations

Now is the moment to transform Central Asia from a periphery of the large trading blocs in Europe and East Asia into a bustling hub of development and trade at the heart of Eurasia.

The Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, together with Afghanistan and Azerbaijan, have taken a decisive step to capitalize on this potential with the adoption of a new initiative to reduce barriers to trade and transport using UN legal instruments, standards and recommendations, significantly increasing interconnectivity in the region.

This will boost the regional market and cross-border supply chains, helping the countries to integrate with the economies of Europe and Asia. It aims in turn to attract investments, technologies and innovation to the region that has been a cradle of civilization, trade and transport routes since ancient times.

This comes as Ministers from the region gather under the United Nations Special Programme for the Economies of Central Asia (SPECA), seizing this opportunity to catalyze their progress on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Mr Batyr Bazarov, Minister of Finance and Economy of Turkmenistan, stated at the annual SPECA Forum on 20-21 November 2019 in Ashgabat: “our goal is to make the region a modern centre of transport services and trade”.

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