Turkmenistan: From Communism to Nationalism by Gradual Economic Reform

Turkmenistan's economic performance during the first decade after independence is interesting because it is an extreme case, regularly ranking last among all the former centrally planned economies by transition indicators measuring speed of reform or degree of economic liberalization. This paper analyses the evolution of the economic system and Turkmenistan's economic development since 1991. The country's abundant resource endowment provided favourable initial conditions for pursuing an agenda that gave a low priority to economic reform, while emphasizing the country's neutrality and minimizing internal political change. Nevertheless, in 1997 the unreformed economy suffered a deep decline and, although it has enjoyed some recovery since 1999, the overall performance of GDP since independence is one of the worst among all transition economies. Although the government had achieved its external and internal political goals, the economic strategy appeared to be unsustainable.