Country presentation «Investment and business opportunities for cooperation with Turkmenistan» was held on July 7 for Italian companies in the format of a video conference.

 The Turkmen delegation at the presentation was headed by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan Vepa Khadzhiev, the Italian – by Deputy Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of the Italian Republic Manlio Di Stefano.

 The interactive forum gathered on a virtual platform more than a hundred representatives of Italian business, who heard up-to-date information from the heads of the financial and economic block and the centralized sector of the industry of Turkmenistan – the departments of the fuel and energy complex.

 The Minister of Finance and Economy of Turkmenistan Mukhammetgeldi Serdarov outlined the priorities of the national investment policy and its advantages for the deployment of long-term business strategies.

 He noted that in some years, the foreign trade turnover of Turkmenistan and Italy reached almost $3 billion, with the export of Turkmen products accounting for more than 90% of this volume.  In recent years, the indicators had decreased, and in order to find new points and impulses for their growth, the current meeting was organized.

 From the Turkmen side, the meeting was attended by the head of the State Bank for Foreign Economic Affairs of Turkmenistan R. Dzhepbarov, the head of the State Concern «Turkmenchemistry» N. Niyazlyev, the deputy foreign minister B. Matiev, the head of TAPI Pipeline Company Limited M. Amanov.  The State Concern «Turkmengas» and the Board of the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Turkmenistan were also represented.

 As significant advantages of Turkmenistan for foreign direct investment were mentioned: the rich reserves of hydrocarbons and the available processing capacities, agricultural potential, an extensive multimodal transport infrastructure and the geographical location of the country, allowing the development of transit traffic in the North-South, East-West directions, including  across the Caspian sea.

 Having taking into account the fact that the priority areas of investment in our country was the oil and gas complex, a number of laws had been adopted in Turkmenistan regulating relations with foreign partners in the joint use of fields.  The main one became the Law «On Hydrocarbon Resources», where all rights were granted to foreign investors in accordance with international standards.

 As noted, the implementation of work in the oil and gas complex with foreign companies was carried out on the basis of concluded production sharing agreements, which created comfortable conditions for the work of foreign companies.  The tax system had been simplified for them, with only royalties and income tax paid.

 It was emphasized that there are huge opportunities for expanding foreign investment in Turkmenistan, associated with the creation of such processing industries as metallurgical, chemical, food, building materials industry.