Turkmenistan sees 7.8-percent GDP growth in oil production

/By AzerNews/

By Aynur Karimova

Turkmenistan has seen a 7.8-percent GDP growth in oil and gas condensate production in the January-July 2015 period. This data was announced at a meeting of the Turkmen Cabinet of Ministers, which summarized the results from various sectors of the national economy for the first seven months of the current year.

It was also noted that the country's GDP growth was at the level of 8.7 percent, including an industrial sector growth rate of about 4.4 percent, 12.6 percent in the construction sector, 13 percent in trade, and 12.2 percent in agricultural production.

The volume of investments from all financing resources amounted to 27.7 billion manat, representing a 7.9 percent growth from that of the same period in 2014.

Energy-rich Turkmenistan, which has 17.5 trillion cubic meters of proven reserves of natural gas, ranks fourth in the world by gas volume, according to a BP annual report. Turkmenistan stays behind only Iran (33.8 trillion cubic meters), Russia (31.3 trillion), and Qatar (24.7 trillion).

The Central Asian nation is keen on increasing and diversifying the supply of its huge volume of natural gas to Europe. Turkmenistan is also proceeding with the construction of gas pipelines that will diversify the routes of Turkmen natural gas transportation, as well as building power plant and transmission lines to increase the volume of electricity. New oil and gas fields are being developed in the country.

Ashgabat also intends to diversify the local economy. The country has an advanced textile industry, while oil, gas, the chemical industry, and the production of building materials are being actively developed.