Hazar Raporu - Issue 02 - Winter 2012

to take a free bus tour of Tbilisi en route.
He will continue his trip on an express
ferry to Turkmenbashy, from where
another high-speed train will take him all
the way to Urumqi in China. The entire
territory of Central Eurasia will be covered
with a great infrastructure of highways,
railways, airports, and logistics centers that
will handle goods and passengers moving
between Europe and Asia.
For many countries in Central Eurasia,
however, envisioning such future is a
complex matter. Political, economic, and
social crises caused by the sudden collapse
of the Soviet Union have dominated the
relatively short history of independence
enjoyed by these states. In 2011, they
celebrated only the twentieth anniversary
of the end of Soviet rule. Memories of
wars, unresolved conflicts, economic
hardships, and coups still haunt the
generation old enough to remember the
days of communist control. Fortunately,
the most difficult times have been left
behind, though a few crucial challenges
persist. The countries of Central Eurasia
are now at the stage of development where
they must complete their political and
economic transitions and choose a path
that would lead them into the ranks of
prosperous developed nations.
The Process of Becoming: Central
Eurasia Twenty Years Later
In the 1990s, many people in the resourcerich
states of Central Eurasia believed that
their respective countries would soon
become the “Kuwaits” and “Switzerlands”
of the twenty-first century. The abundance
of natural resources made this notion so
alluring and so palpable that few really
thought about the process by which this
goal would be realized, if it were to be
realized at all. Becoming another Kuwait
or Switzerland would have required
different development strategies, with a
strategic vision supported by the presence
of other essential components, such as a
business friendly environment, political
and economic capabilities, the effective
management of revenues from the sale
of natural resource and an advantageous
location.
In the past twenty years, the regional
countries, especially the resource-rich
ones, have achieved a great deal. In 2009,
the GDPs of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan exceeded
$43 billion, $115 billion, $32 billion,
and $19 billion, respectively. On the
other hand, the combined GDP of the
remaining four, more poorly endowed,
states—Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan,
and Tajikistan—was less than $30
billion. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan
have attracted billions of dollars in
FDI and have completed key energy
infrastructure projects that guarantee
their future development. A latecomer,
Turkmenistan, has started opening its
doors to investors only recently, with
the great expectations still to be met.
The most populous state in the region,
Uzbekistan, has chosen a gradual domestic
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