On the 5th of March 2019, a meeting was held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan with the Regional Director for Central Asia at the World Bank Ms. Lilia Burunciuc and the World Bank Country Manager for Turkmenistan Mr. Jan-Peter Olters, who arrived in Ashgabat on a working visit.
In the beginning of the meeting, representatives of the World Bank expressed gratitude for organizing the meeting and noted large potential of developing cooperation between Turkmenistan and the World Bank. The sides thoroughly discussed the current collaboration, particularly assistance of the World Bank to the activities of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea, which is chaired by Turkmenistan during the present year as well. The representatives of the Bank expressed great interest in developing cooperation on the regional level and highly appraised the assistance projects of Turkmenistan to neighboring Afghanistan.
Also, the issues of diversifying the ways of cooperation have been discussed. The representatives of the Bank proposed to widen collaboration in the framework of projects in the sphere of digital economy, logistics, energy, water resources and hydrometeorology. Certainly the involvement of international expertise in developing these fields is an integral part of Turkmenistan’s policy. The sides underlined that such activities coherently interrelate with social and economic reforms realized in the country and implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals in Turkmenistan.
It is worthwhile to note that the representative office of the World Bank successfully functions in Turkmenistan for many years that successfully implements the technical assistance projects and programs in the country. During the current meeting, the representatives of the World Bank confirmed their readiness on considering any proposals of Turkmenistan on developing the cooperation, particularly on implementing the projects in the sphere of energy, transport, healthcare and education. Also the expertise knowledge of the World Bank on perfecting the banking system in Turkmenistan and attainment of international financial standards in the country was proposed.