What are some factors in slow development in central Asia's resources?

Answer 1

Editor's Summary: During a recent conference in Almaty, Kazakhstan devoted to discuss key development issues facing Central Asia, one of the topics debated among experts from the region and from abroad was how to manage the "natural resource curse", i.e., the widely observed phenomenon that developing economies blessed with ample natural resources tend to perform worse than those with fewer or no such resources. In this article, Johannes Linn explores why it is so hard for countries to manage their natural resources well, what has been the experience in Central Asia to date, and what might be suitable ways to manage future bonanzas.

In early June 2008, the International School of Economics, the Central Asian campus of the London School of Economics at the Kazakh British Technical University in Almaty, organized a conference on "Institution Building and Economic Development in Central Asia". One of the topics debated was the threat of the "natural resource curse" hanging over Central Asian countries with substantial energy resource endowments. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and (to a lesser extent) Uzbekistan have large oil and gas reserves; Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have large hydropower resources, although much of their potential

Answer 2

Central Asia is landlocked, so transportation is difficult.