The Caspian Sea with the Status of “Lake with Marine Elements”: Suitable for which Country?
The Caspian Sea is the world’s largest inland body of water with an area of approximately 398 thousand square kilometers. Along with its large hydrocarbon reserves, the Caspian Sea is home to 90% of the world’s sturgeon stocks. More than 20 animals and about 20 plant species grow in the […]
Old Europe, New Europe and the Associated Trio
In some literature and discussion, one can see Europe divided into “Old Europe” and “New Europe”. It is believed that the distinction between the two Europes was first made in a public speech by then U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in January 2003 [Defense.gov, 2003] to make a distinction […]
Economic Cooperation between Central Asia and China
Central Asia is one of the most important regions for China in terms of economics, politics, and security. China’s role in the region is permanently increasing. It remains a key trade partner for all Central Asian countries. Moreover, China provides the region with substantial investments, primarily in the energy sector. […]
Recent Developments in the Global Supply Chains
Development of the global supply chains gained importance following the pandemic-related disruptions, which caused negative consequences such as inflation. Economists and policy experts are debating about the future of the global supply chains as policy responses from advanced and developing economies were different. Therefore, this commentary aims to review recent […]
Foreign Direct Investments in the Era of Pandemic: Perspectives for the Eurasian Region
Despite the fact that the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak during 2002-2004 caused by the first known zoonotic coronavirus affected a relatively small number of people and countries, its negative impact on the financial flows, particularly Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), was well noticed by financial analysts, although the final […]
Eurasia Battle for Electric Batteries: View from Ukraine
The world shift towards decarbonization and achieving complete electricity generations from renewable energy sources (RES) creates a new power configuration in energy geopolitics. Apart from global state competition for investment in green projects (e.g., power stations, hydrogen infrastructure, carbon capture utilization & sequestration facilities), there is an ongoing trend in […]
The Crypto Ban, Great Migration and Bitcoin Mining in Kazakhstan
In July 2021, the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF), one of the leading research institutes in the world focusing on non-traditional financial instruments, which came into prominence, among other things, for the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) [Cbeci.org, 2021], a real-time index that tracks the total electricity consumption […]
Do Central Asian Countries Export Urbanization?
Currently, Central Asia is among the largest labor-exporting regions in the world. Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan rely very much on remittances sent by their citizens working abroad. According to the World Bank, remittances comprise about 28.4% of the GDP of Kyrgyzstan making it the second country in terms of remittances […]
The Court of the Eurasian Economic Union
The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is one of the recent regional trade agreements. Despite the idea of Eurasian integration has a long history and was proposed by the first President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev in the early 1990-s, Kazakhstan together with Belarus and Russia formed a customs union only in […]
Bringing Turkmen Gas to the European Market: Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline
According to the British Petroleum (BP) Statistical Review, Turkmenistan is the world’s fourth-largest natural gas giant with proven natural gas reserves of 19.5 trillion cubic meters, after Russia (38 trillion cubic meters), Iran (32 trillion cubic meters) and Qatar (24.7 trillion cubic meters). Thus, Turkmenistan ac-counts for 9.8% of the […]