Turkmenistan

G

Culture

Written literature in Turkmenistan dates back at least to the 18th century. An oral tradition of poetry was dominant until the establishment of printing in the 1920s and a subsequent burst of creativity. Turkmen intellectuals and literature were both suppressed during the Stalinist purges of the 1930s.

Turkmen music has ties with music of neighbouring Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. The folk music is rich in work and pastoral songs, although some of the repertory is drawn from the works of great poets. Accompanying instruments include the dutar, a two-stringed fretted lute, and the tüidük, an end-blown flute.

IV

Economy

Turkmenistan was one of the slowest of the former Soviet Central Asian republics to fully embrace market reforms. In 2003, according to World Bank estimates, Turkmenistan’s gross national product (GNP) was US$5,442 million, equivalent to US$1,120 per head. Economic performance has been severely hampered by the lack of effective, independent export routes for its natural gas; the main export routes currently pass through the territory of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and thus unrestricted access to markets is liable to outside control. In common with other former Soviet republics, Turkmenistan’s economy has suffered from the dissolution of the USSR and the subsequent disruption of trade. Insistence by the Turkmen government on charging market prices for its gas resulted in retaliatory action by CIS partners who raised transit tariffs and refused to allow access to hard currency markets.

A

Agriculture

Agriculture is a leading sector of Turkmenistan’s economy. It accounted for about 10 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), and accounts for about 49 per cent of employment. Turkmenistan’s primary crop is cotton, with long-staple cotton varieties contributing about one third of total output. Other crops include wheat, fruit, and silk. Livestock-raising is also important, especially of Karakul sheep, horses, and camels. The lambs of Karakul sheep are the source of what is known in the fur trade as Persian lamb, and the wool from mature sheep is used to make yarn for carpet manufacture. Improvement to the irrigation system is of major importance to agriculture in this arid area. The current systems are inefficient and subject to large losses, particularly through evaporation.

B

Mining

Mining has become one of the most important sectors in the economy and in 1995 oil and gas accounted for more than 47 per cent of industrial production. The pre-independence annual average production of 85 billion cu m had dropped to 35 billion cu m in 1996, largely owing to non-payment by CIS partners. There are also large deposits of minerals including coal, salt, limestone, lead, and zinc.

C

Manufacturing

Manufacturing industry varies from engineering and the manufacture of machinery for metallurgy, to the more traditional industries associated with textile production utilizing cotton, silk, and wool. Carpet manufacture is one of the traditional industries that is still significant in the economy. The output of the food-processing industries is exported to neighbouring countries in the region.