TURKMENISTAN INVITES FOREIGN INVESTMENT, EYES TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD.

"Turkmenistan is interested in the broad participation of foreign investors in its development," President Saparmurat Niyazov said in an interview. In a bid to attract Western capital, Niyazov announced a program to modernize the country’s financial and banking sector and to change the legislation governing foreign investments. He also spoke, inter alia, of a project to build a Europe-Asia railroad via Turkmenistan. (19) Turkmenistan has lagged behind Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan with regard to economic reforms and foreign investments. The country is ranked fourth worldwide in natural gas reserves, but lacks the means to develop gas deposits and depends on Russia for access to the international market. The proposed transcontinental railroad resuscitates a historic project; versions of the proposed railroad figured prominently in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century "Great Game" over Central Asia.

1. Reuter, December 26

2. Reuter, December 26

3. Interfax, December 25

4. Interfax, December 25

5. Interfax, December 25

6. Interfax, December 25

7. Interfax, December 25

8. Interfax, December 25

9. Interfax, December 25

10. Interfax, December 22 through 25; Itar-Tass, December 24; Reuter, December 22 through 25; AFP, December 25

11. Reuter, December 25

12. Reuter and Interfax, December 25

13. Reuter, December 25

14. Interfax, Reuter, December 25

15. Interfax, December 21 through 23

16. Interfax, Reuter, December 24

17. Nezavisimaya gazeta, December 22

18. Interfax, December 24

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