ourt
Leaders:
Chief of State:
President Saparmurad NIYAZOV (since NA October 1990)
Head of Government:
Prime Minister (vacant); Deputy Prime Ministers Valery G. OCHERTSOV,
Orazgeldi AYDOGDYEV, Yagmur OVEZOV, Jourakuli BABAKULIYEV, Matkarim RAJAPOV,
Rejep SAPAROV, Boris SHIKHMURADOV (since NA); Chairman of the People's
Council Sakhat MURADOV (since NA)
Member of:
CIS, CSCE, EBRD, ECO, ESCAP, IBRD, IMF, NACC, UN, UNCTAD
Diplomatic representation in US:
chief of mission:
NA
chancery:
NA
telephone:
NA
US diplomatic representation:
chief of mission:
Ambassador Joseph S. HULINGS III
embassy:
Yubilenaya Hotel, Ashgabat (Ashkhabad)
mailing address:
APO AE 09862
telephone:
[7] 36320 24-49-08
Flag:
green field, including a vertical stripe on the hoist side, with a claret
veritcal stripe in between containing five white, black, and orange carpet
guls (an assymetrical design used in producing rugs) associated with five
different tribes; a white crescent and five white stars in the upper left
corner to the right of the carpet guls

*Turkmenistan, Economy

Overview:
Like the other 15 former Soviet republics, Turkmenistan faces enormous
problems of economic adjustment - to move away from Moscow-based central
planning toward a system of decisionmaking by private entrepreneurs, local
government authorities, and, hopefully, foreign investors. This process
requires wholesale changes in supply sources, markets, property rights, and
monetary arrangements. Industry - with 10% of the labor force - is heavily
weighted toward the energy sector, which produced 11% of the ex-USSR's gas
and 1% of its oil. Turkmenistan ranked second among the former Soviet
republics in cotton production, mainly in the irrigated western region,
where the huge Karakumskiy Canal taps the Amu Darya. The general decline in
national product accelerated in 1992, principally because of inability to
obtain spare parts and disputes with customers over the price of natural
gas.
National product:
GDP $NA
National product real growth rate:
-10% (1992 est.)
National product per capita:
$NA
Inflation rate (consumer prices):
53% per month (first quarter 1993)
Unemployment rate:
15%-20% (1992 est.)
Budget:
revenues $NA; expenditures $NA, including capital expenditures of $NA
Exports:
$100 million to outside the successor states of the former USSR (1992)
commodities:
n