Central Asia consists of five culturally and ethnically diverse countries that have followed different paths to political and economic transformation in the past 25 years since achieving independence from the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have in relative terms made strides in market reforms, while Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have not yet completed their transitions to market economies. Tajikistan represents an intermediate case. After experiencing more than a decade of growth based on hydrocarbon booms, Central Asian countries are faced with increasing challenges resulting from falling commodity prices, declining trade and lower migrant remittances. The main policy challenge is to move away from commodity-based growth strategies to market-oriented diversification and adoption of a broad spectrum of economic, institutional and political reforms. The major obstacles to political reform and structural diversification in the five Central Asian economies are internal and external geopolitical factors and deeply embedded institutional weaknesses within each country, particularly in areas where economic management interacts with authoritarian political systems and imperfect legal institutions.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The CASE Network is a group of economic and social research centers in Poland, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and Belarus. Organizations in the network regularly conduct joint research and advisory projects. The research covers a wide spectrum of economic and social issues, including economic effects of the European integration process, economic relations between the EU and CIS, monetary policy and euro-accession, innovation and competitiveness, and labour markets and social policy. The network aims to increase the range and quality of economic research and information available to policy-makers and civil society, and takes an active role in on-going debates on how to meet the economic challenges facing the EU, post-transition countries and the global economy. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor mayThe CASE network consists of: (1989)(1990), Member of Parliament (1991-1993 and Member of the Monetary Policy Council of the National Bank of Poland (1998Poland ( -2004; Since the end of the 1980s he has been involved in policy advising and policy research in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Egypt, Georgia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Syria, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Yemen, as well as in a number of international research projects related to monetary and fiscal policies, currency crises, international financial architecture, EU and EMU enlargement, perspectives of European integration, European Neighborhood Policy and political economy of transition; World Bank and UNDP Consultant; Author of several academic and policy papers, and editor of several book publications. Departments -1988Departments - -2000. Since 2000, he has worked as an independent consultant for the World Bank, the IMF, DFID, SADC, and SACU. His main responsibility in recent years has been to lead teams of experts that analysed the progress of integration between the European Union and Mediterranean countries in the context of several large EU funded projects. Aside from regional integration, his other areas of expertise cover fiscal policy, trade facilitation and customs reform. In addition to a number of academic papers, he co-editored "Customs Modernization Initiatives" (World Bank, 2004) and "Customs Modernization Manual" (World Bank, 2005 AbstractThis report aims to identify, explain and detail the links and interactions in southern and eastern Mediterranean countries (SEMCs) betw...