Central Asia

UNDP Uzbekistan held a workshop aimed to improve the negotiation skills of the participants of the Annual Innovation Fair presenting their innovation projects.

The cattle-breeding campaign has been launched at the stock-farms of Turkmenmallary Association throughout the country.

Another journalist was severely beaten in Kyrgyzstan. The day before International Women’s Day March 8, unknown assailants attacked the chief cameraman of the OshTV television and radio company Bahidir Kenjebaev in the city of Osh.

The Parliament of Kyrgyzstan has ratified imposing of property tax moratorium before January 1, 2010. The bill was submitted to the parliament recently and today received support of 75 members of parliament.

GDP decline in Kazakhstan may result in increase of unemployment rate up to 8.7% in 2009 and 9.5% in 2010, said Chairman of Confederation of Employers of Kazakhstan Kadyr Baikenov.

Russia's natural gas monopoly Gazprom has completed the first stage of geological prospecting operations in the Ustyurt region of Uzbekistan, investments in this project have amounted to US$215 million.

On the first day of spring, representatives of "Agama" club of mountaineers and Ashgabat's club of young tourists joined together to organize the replanting of a juniper grove that once grew on Markau mountain.

Kazakhstan is planning to invest over $9 billion in chemical industry in the period from 2009 to 2015, said Kazakh Industry and Trade Minister Vladimir Shkolnik.

Uzbekistan will participate in regular session of Organization for Economic Co-operation, which will be held March 11 in Teheran.

Kyrgyz power distributing companies lost at least 2.9 billion kWh of electricity in 2008, which is about 31.6 percent (18 percent – technical loss, 13.6 percent - commercial), the Kyrgyz government reported.