CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA
Analyst
Ivan Tchakarov
Former Investment Bank Chief EconomistRecent Country Insights
TOPIC OF THE WEEK: Too hot to handle? Mapping overheating risks in Eurasia
CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 11 Sep 2026
Evaluating the medium-term government programs in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan has brought into sharper focus the very high growth rates in these economies, with neighboring Kyrgyzstan comfortably beating even those ambitious 7-8% plus growth projections. A question that I have posed for myself in r...
TOPIC OF THE WEEK: Non-gold exports put a floor under the Uzbek som
CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 04 Sep 2026
My readers know that I prefer to look at FX developments in the CCA region chiefly through the prism of the Russian RUB. I have repeatedly argued that this provides the best first-order approximation of the various other relevant factors affecting currency behavior in the region. This time around...
TOPIC OF THE WEEK: Tajikistan's high-octane growth bet
CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 28 Aug 2026
Continuing in the vein of my analyses of medium-term frameworks, I follow on the Uzbekistan's 2027-2029 Fiscal Strategy and now dissect the medium-term macroeconomic framework presented by the Tajik government on Jul 29. Without a doubt, it comes across as an ambitious high-growth scenario cente...
TOPIC OF THE WEEK: Uzbekistan’s fiscal reset gains traction
CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 21 Aug 2026
I have in the last two weeks combed through the almost 200-page 2027-2029 Fiscal Strategy (in Uzbek only) released by the Uzbek Ministry of Economy and Finance. It has been a laborious, yet worthwhile exercise. My key takeaway is that Uzbekistan is turning fiscal discipline from a one-off cor...
TOPIC OF THE WEEK: Pashinyan’s referendum traps—heads he loses, tails he loses more
CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 07 Aug 2026
Armenia’s newly elected National Assembly convened this week following the disputed June 7 vote. As expected, the opposition took its seats, perhaps mindful of the limited gains delivered by the Georgian opposition’s parliamentary boycott. Alongside mounting pressure from Russian trade restric...
TOPIC OF THE WEEK: Uzbekistan's fiscal strategy 2027-2029 sees no FX drama
CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 31 Jul 2026
The Uzbek sum is set to bend, not break. This is how the new 2027-2029 Fiscal Strategy sees the UZS—no FX cliff, but a slow, controlled crawl. This makes Tashkent’s FX outlook almost boring, and that is the bullish part. Uzbekistan’s new 2027–2029 Fiscal Strategy no longer publishes an explici...
TOPIC OF THE WEEK: The Kyrgyz som looks vulnerable, but the trade may be early rather than wrong
CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 24 Jul 2026
The Kyrgyz som is being held on an exceptionally tight leash. The central bank has sold almost US$1.5bn through nine interventions in 2026—already far above the full-year total for 2025—yet the USDKGS has barely moved from 87.45. At this point, the policy looks increasingly like defense of a leve...
Remittance riches shore up Tajikistan’s external accounts
CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · In Brief · 16 Jul 2026
Tajikistan external story is probably the simplest as the BoP is heavily dominated by remittances from Russia. Tajikistan is the last in the short series on the external accounts of the CCA economies, and it is arguably the most straightforward of all. It has been posting CA surpluses since mid-2...
Uzbekistan's BoP suffers the pinch of gold, albeit with a caveat
CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · In Brief · 15 Jul 2026
The CA deficit has widened significantly on lack of gold exports. Uzbekistan had enjoyed a stream of steadily improving external accounts over 2024/2025 as the CA deficit narrowed from the peak of 8.0 percent of GDP in 1Q24 (on a 12mma basis) to the trough of only 1.9 percent of GDP in 3Q25 (Grap...