President of Turkmenistan Starts Working Visit to Moscow

The president of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov is to begin a working visit to Russia November 1, the Turkmen ministry for foreign affairs said late October, supplying no reason for the trip. Russia cut Turkmen gas import in early 2016.

Berdymukhammedov and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have never met in the Kremlin. The last time the Turkmen leader paid an official visit to Moscow was when Dmitri Medvedev was president. However in May 10-11 2007, Putin visited Ashgabat, where the two held talks before visiting the city of Turkmenbashi to participate in the trilateral Russian-Turkmen-Kazakh summit. The sides also signed a joint declaration on construction of the Caspian coastal gas pipeline, a project later shelved.

In 2015 Russian Gazprom reduced the import of Turkmen gas to a minimum of 4bn m³, and this year in general it has stopped its purchase.

Over the past two years Turkmenistan's economy, after hydrocarbon prices fell sharply, began to deteriorate. The government cancelled a number of social benefits, the local currency is devalued, in the "black market" the value of the dollar is 2.5 times higher than the rate announced by the National Bank. According to Radio Liberty, state employees only received their salaries for August in October.

Berdymukhammedov (Credit: Govt)

In all likelihood, Berdymukhammedov's visit to Moscow is connected with energy. According to the portal Turkmenistan Chronicle, for the first 9 months of 2016, China bought 23bn m³ of natural gas from Turkmenistan. Last year, the overall supply of Turkmen gas to China amounted to 28bn m³. However, the Turkmen government does not receive the full funds for the gas supply as the money is used to repay billions of dollars of Chinese loans. Therefore, the export of gas to China still does not bring Turkmenistan tangible income, and the size of it is not reported.

Ilham Shaban