India plans to increase FDI in Kyrgyzstan; Central Asians comprise of one third of migrants to Russia; NATO aids Dushanbe to secure civil war munitions; Kabul promises security to Pakistan for TAPI pipeline; Astana retains its position as global leader in
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  • January 30 - February 05

    According to reports, the Indian ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Phunchok Stobdan has said that India is looking to increase the amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Kyrgyzstan. More funds will be poured into training Kyrgyz personnel as well as offer training for workers in the food processing fields. India is also eager to provide training in the fields of tourism and light industry. Ambassador Stobdan also said that Indian entrepreneurs would like to invest in the tourism sector but Kyrgyzstan’s visa regime is problematic. 1

    In another development, according to the latest migration statistics provided by Moscow, Central Asians comprised almost one-in-three legal migrants entering Russia in 2011. Out of the 13.8 million foreigners and stateless people that have legally arrived in the country in 2011, Uzbeks comprised around 2 million, Kazakhs almost 1.5 million, less than 1 million came from Tajikistan, and Kyrgyz migrants totaled around half a million. 2

    According to reports, NATO has agreed to help Tajikistan locate and secure thousands of tons of munitions left abandoned and decaying since the country’s 1992-97 civil war. NATO aims to secure $760,000 in funding for its yearlong Partnership Trust Fund project signed with Tajikistan to find unidentified caches and either secure or destroy them. This initiative will help counter illegal cross-border trade in munitions. 3

    In another development, as per the leaked NATO report, the Taliban believe that victory will be theirs once NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) pulls out of Afghanistan in 2014. The Islamist force is now in charge of all anti-government activity in the troubled state, which will raise concerns in the near future to the neighboring Central Asian states due to the narcotics trade. 4

    In the meanwhile, according to reports, the Afghan government, during the two-way talks in Islamabad over the proposed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project in the first week of February, promised Pakistan that it would provide security along the Afghan stretch of the TAPI pipeline once the operations begin. The Afghan delegation included Deputy Finance Minister Mohammad Mustafa Mastoor and Deputy Policy and Mines Minister Mir Ahmad Jawid Sadat. 5

    In other developments, Kazakhstan’s state nuclear company Kazatomprom announced that it has boosted uranium output by 9 % in 2011, retaining its position as global leader with a 35 percent share of world production of the nuclear fuel. It mined 21,440 tons of the power metal in 2011 against 19,624 tons in 2010—providing around 17 percent of world reactor requirements. 6

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