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Abstract
The differences in resource endowments and initial economic conditions influenced attitudes toward economic transformation in the Central Asian states. In 1992, Saparmurat Niyazov campaigned for the presidency of Turkmenistan on the platform that the country’s rich gas and oil resources would turn it into the Kuwait of Central Asia. Economic reforms were postponed largely on the expectation that sharp initial gains in the terms of trade and subsequent opening up of new export markets for the country’s energy resources would allow for a gradual pace of reform. Likewise, Uzbekistan’s preindependence specialization in cotton and gold, and its self-sufficiency in energy, may have contributed to its reliance on a more gradual and state-led approach to economic transformation.1 While cotton and gold exports were successfully redirected to new markets, a fall in the world price of gold forced the authorities to rethink their strategy and to introduce a comprehensive reform package in 1994, which became stalled by 1996. By contrast, Kazakhstan, the third most resource-rich state in Central Asia, refrained from over-reliance on a single product (oil) and pursued a more decisive approach to transformation. In addition, its close economic ties to Russia and a significant Russian population within its territory made it advantageous for Kazakhstan to reform at a comparable and, in some areas, at an even faster rate than Russia, in order to minimize the disruptions to economic relations between the two countries.
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