In one of the recent posts I mentioned that the new law on foreign investments in Turkmenistan came into effect. My conclusion was that Berdymukhammedov was planning to carry out economic reforms, intended to bring the Turkmen economy closer to the market model. A few days ago I read the whole act and it confirmed my point. The law is exceptionally liberal and very beneficial for investors. Let me quote several excerpts:

If an international agreement signed by Turkmenistan contains clauses that contradict the Turkmen constitution and other legal acts, then the regulations of the international agreement are applied.

Foreign investors (…) will be subject to the state legal order. The state legal order means that the legal procedures that regulate the activity of foreign investors (…) may not be less beneficial than the procedures (…) applied to domestic investors.

In case of amendments to Turkmenistan’s legal system and introduction of bans and restrictions that adversely affect the legal regime applied to foreign investors (…), the investors will have a guarantee that within the next 10 years they will operate under the law that was in effect at the moment of registration of a given foreign investment.

It’s worth adding that the Turkmen authorities have made every effort to propagate the new law and to publicize the changing image of Ashgabat on the international arena. Their objective is to convince the investors that Turkmenistan has become a credible partner. No less astonishing is the fact that the new law has been published in its entirety on the official Turkmen government website, which is a real sensation in this country.

The grand-scale conference titled ‘Exploration, Prospecting and Development of Gas Fields and Mineral Resources’, organized in Ashgabat on March 28-31, was meant to achieve similar goals. Among the participants one could spot delegates of the key states, involved in the Great Game, as well as representatives of global concerns, such as Gazprom, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Lukoil, Shell, CNPC, Petronas, BP, Total, Burren, Schlumberger.

As we can see, the Turkmen authorities have the best of intentions and excellent PR. Now let’s watch them deliver on their promises.