By Erkin Akhmadov (2/21/2008 issue of the CACI Analyst)

In the beginning of February 2008, the press-service of the National Bank of Uzbekistan (NBU) gave an official notice of disapproval regarding an information leak stating that the government’s special services inspect bank accounts of citizens receiving funds or remittances from abroad. The statement followed after a number of foreign media sources reported that accounts of the bank’s clients were being interfered with. It was then argued that the information sought to destabilize the official money transfer market and reorient it to unofficial and illegal conduits.

By Chemen Durdiyeva (2/21/2008 issue of the CACI Analyst)

On February 8 2008, Turkmenistan’s president Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov held an extensive Cabinet session where the major courses of Turkmenistan’s economic reform were discussed. One of the key issues was a petrol price shake-up that promptly caught the population’s attention and caused a nationwide panic among car drivers.

President Berdymuhammedov has put significant efforts into reforming the country’s economic and trade sectors in order to make them correspond to international standards and to move toward a market economy.

By Erkin Akhmadov (2/6/2008 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The problem of human trafficking and the “export” of forced prostitution is present in every state of Central Asia. In Uzbekistan, increasing numbers of human trafficking victims has led the problem to receive growing attention from state organs. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Uzbekistan, more crimes of this character were investigated in the past several years, but the number of persons trafficked and abused is steadily growing.