GlobalSource Partners | Country Insights

Over the weekend, Armenia held partial local elections, where the ruling Civil Contract enjoyed a sweeping victory. The October 25 vote did not represent nationwide municipal elections as 21 out of a total of 64 municipalities went to the polls. In 19 of them voters elected local councils and in ...

TOPIC OF THE WEEK: From handshakes to hard cash

CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 23 Oct 2026

Marco Rubio’s visit to Uzbekistan and the C5+1 ministerial in Samarkand have brought renewed attention to Central Asia’s efforts to attract Western investment. Yet the economic significance of this opening depends less on the nationality of investors than on the financing, commercial arrangements...

TOPIC OF THE WEEK: From tech boom to lasting wealth—Armenia vs Georgia

CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 16 Oct 2026

The Georgian press enthusiastically reported last week almost US$850mn in ICT export revenues in the first half of the year. This has prompted me to evaluate whether the post-2022 ICT boom has generated lasting gains in GDP, jobs, income and FX earnings, and whether Georgia or Armenia is better p...

TOPIC OF THE WEEK: Who Buys the Bonds? Armenia and Georgia’s 2027 Funding Test

CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 09 Oct 2026

Armenia and Georgia have now both entered the formal 2027 budget cycle. Armenia’s government submitted its 2027 budget proposal on October 1, which came only a day after Georgia’s government had presented its own 2027 budget package together with a document titled “Basic Data and Directions” for ...

TOPIC OF THE WEEK: Gold-rich, shock-proof? Testing external buffers across the Caucasus and Central Asia

CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 02 Oct 2026

CCA countries have been breaking records in accumulating FX reserves. While Uzbekistan has mostly been on the radar screen given its very large stock of reserves, the rest of the countries have also been setting new highs in building up FX buffers, albeit for different reasons, ranging from remit...

TOPIC OF THE WEEK: Policy rates—higher for longer?

CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 25 Sep 2026

The unfolding of the Iran crisis and the attendant inflation shock has changed the way central banks in the region have been assessing risks and acting upon them. Kyrgyzstan was tightening even before the onset of the crisis, but Georgia (in May) and Armenia (last week) also raised policy rates, ...

TOPIC OF THE WEEK: Armenia’s export stress test: shock, adaptation or diversion?

CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 18 Sep 2026

I had earlier poked fun at Nikol Pashinyan's statement that "If peppers are spoiling, I'll pay for those peppers. If roses are spoiling, I'll pay for them, too." It represented an emotionally-charged outburst that was tied to the restrictions imposed by Russia on a number of Armenian exports in M...

TOPIC OF THE WEEK: Too hot to handle? Mapping overheating risks in Eurasia

CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 11 Sep 2026

Evaluating the medium-term government programs in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan has brought into sharper focus the very high growth rates in these economies, with neighboring Kyrgyzstan comfortably beating even those ambitious 7-8% plus growth projections. A question that I have posed for myself in r...

TOPIC OF THE WEEK: Non-gold exports put a floor under the Uzbek som

CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 04 Sep 2026

My readers know that I prefer to look at FX developments in the CCA region chiefly through the prism of the Russian RUB. I have repeatedly argued that this provides the best first-order approximation of the various other relevant factors affecting currency behavior in the region. This time around...

TOPIC OF THE WEEK: Tajikistan's high-octane growth bet

CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 28 Aug 2026

Continuing in the vein of my analyses of medium-term frameworks, I follow on the Uzbekistan's 2027-2029 Fiscal Strategy and now dissect the medium-term macroeconomic framework presented by the Tajik government on Jul 29. Without a doubt, it comes across as an ambitious high-growth scenario cente...

TOPIC OF THE WEEK: Uzbekistan’s fiscal reset gains traction

CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 21 Aug 2026

I have in the last two weeks combed through the almost 200-page 2027-2029 Fiscal Strategy (in Uzbek only) released by the Uzbek Ministry of Economy and Finance. It has been a laborious, yet worthwhile exercise. My key takeaway is that Uzbekistan is turning fiscal discipline from a one-off cor...

TOPIC OF THE WEEK: Pashinyan’s referendum traps—heads he loses, tails he loses more

CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 07 Aug 2026

Armenia’s newly elected National Assembly convened this week following the disputed June 7 vote. As expected, the opposition took its seats, perhaps mindful of the limited gains delivered by the Georgian opposition’s parliamentary boycott. Alongside mounting pressure from Russian trade restric...

TOPIC OF THE WEEK: Uzbekistan's fiscal strategy 2027-2029 sees no FX drama

CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 31 Jul 2026

The Uzbek sum is set to bend, not break. This is how the new 2027-2029 Fiscal Strategy sees the UZS—no FX cliff, but a slow, controlled crawl. This makes Tashkent’s FX outlook almost boring, and that is the bullish part. Uzbekistan’s new 2027–2029 Fiscal Strategy no longer publishes an explici...

TOPIC OF THE WEEK: The Kyrgyz som looks vulnerable, but the trade may be early rather than wrong

CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · Report · 24 Jul 2026

The Kyrgyz som is being held on an exceptionally tight leash. The central bank has sold almost US$1.5bn through nine interventions in 2026—already far above the full-year total for 2025—yet the USDKGS has barely moved from 87.45. At this point, the policy looks increasingly like defense of a leve...

Remittance riches shore up Tajikistan’s external accounts

CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA · In Brief · 16 Jul 2026

Tajikistan external story is probably the simplest as the BoP is heavily dominated by remittances from Russia. Tajikistan is the last in the short series on the external accounts of the CCA economies, and it is arguably the most straightforward of all. It has been posting CA surpluses since mid-2...