Crossroads Asia | Politics | Central Asia

In Turkmenistan’s Data Desert, the Golden Age Is a Mirage

The IMF says Turkmenistan, in failing to provide key economic data, is in breach of its obligations. 

It was a short press release, published on a Friday afternoon and easily missed. 

The International Monetary Fund’s executive board had considered a report on “Turkmenistan’s observance of its obligations… which requires member countries to provide data necessary for the IMF’s activities.” 

Ashgabat, the board said, “has not provided key required data, including information on international reserve assets, official holdings of gold and foreign exchange, and a complete balance of payments.”

This non-provision, the statement continued, “could not be explained by a lack of capacity and therefore constitutes a breach of Turkmenistan’s obligations.” In six months, the board will consider again Turkmenistan’s progress, the statement said, noting that the provision of data helps the IMF support effective policy formation.

The IMF probably shouldn’t hold its proverbial breath.

“This is not something new,” Aynabat Yaylymova, executive director of the Progres Foundation told The Diplomat. “Concealing information is a key to a regime’s survival.”

The Progres Foundation works with Turkmen experts to monitor, research, and highlight human development in Turkmenistan in absence of reliable government data or adequate government attention.

Keen readers of the regular World Bank Global Economic Prospects reports will have noted that for years, footnotes touch on Turkmenistan’s exclusion from various data sets. In 2021, one such report noted: “Due to lack of reliable data of adequate quality, the World Bank is currently not publishing economic output, income, or growth data for Turkmenistan and República Bolivariana de Venezuela.”

A 2024 World Bank publication titled “Turkmenistan Economic Report” explained via a highlighted box buried at the end of the report that, “Turkmenistan provides limited trade data publications, compounded by concerns about the reliability of Turkmenistan’s official statistics.” The box went on to explain how the analysts triangulated trade statistics for the country via the mirrored data sets of 109 other countries, but noted that this method has its own failings – especially since Russia and Belarus no longer share trade data either. 

In March 2018 the IMF issued a declaration of censure against Venezuela, in light of its failure to take action on a November 2017 warning that mirrors the notice issued last week to Turkmenistan. Since Venezuela was not, at the time, actively borrowing from the IMF the censure had little bite. 

“I am not sure the IMF has leverage in this case since the government does not use its financial resources,” Yaylymova commented. “The government also does not care about its reputation.”

Ashgabat joined the IMF in 1992 but has engaged only marginally, never taking part in any assistance or borrowing programs. Doing so would undercut the myth the Turkmen government repeats ad nauseum: Turkmen are living in a golden age. 

“Turkmenistan’s story since independence is the story of the government that operates with impunity and extreme opacity,” Yaylymova explained. 

When The Diplomat asked why Turkmenistan is so recalcitrant with its data, Yaylymova said that, “Providing the IMF with a complete, verifiable balance of payments and official reserve data would force the government to expose exactly where the billions from the sales of natural gas are held, how they are managed, and how they are spent. This is in the context where citizens have never seen the state budget.”

Turkmenistan’s state news platform is named “Altyn Asyr” – “Golden Age” – and ostentatiously hopeful language pervades government statements, regardless of the actual reality of life in Turkmenistan. 

“If the government provides the........

© The Diplomat