Rustam Minnikhanov comes on a working trip to Turkmenistan

On 4 August upon his arrival to the Turkmenbashi International Airport late in the evening, the Rais (Head) of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov was welcomed by Turkmenistan Minister of Finance and Economy Mammetguly Astanagulov, the Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Russia to Turkmenistan Ivan Volynkin and other high rank officials of the host country. 

On 5 August Rustam Minnikhanov as a member of a Russian delegation headed by the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Government Dmitriy Patrushev, will take part in the third conference of the UN on landlocked developing countries to be held in the Awaza Congress Center of the City of Turkmenbashi. In his working agenda the Rais of the republic also has planned meetings with the Leadership of Turkmenistan and conversations with guests of honor of the Forum.

The main topic of the conference in Turkmenistan is “Advancing progress through partnership” and its main aim is to provide an opportunity to interact with world leaders, the UN leadership, heads, investors, activists and other people at the high level for developing a strategy to promote the integration of landlocked countries' problems.

A special group of developing landlocked countries, which comprises 32 countries of Asia, Africa, Europe and South America, was organized in the UN in 2003. These countries, with a combined population of around 500 million people, face particular challenges due to the lack of direct territorial access to the sea, remoteness and isolation from world markets. As a result, they depend on a very limited range of sources of export earnings and, being very poor, do not have a proper infrastructure of highways and railways. Landlocked countries are vulnerable to climate change and suffer from desertification, land degradation, drought, etc.

The UN conference on landlocked developing countries is held once in a decade with participation of leaders of the states and Governments, and Russia as one of the leading partners of these developing countries takes part in the distribution of aid provided within the framework of international development assistance to recipient countries. This is justified from both a political and economic point of view, since three EAEU member countries belong to this group.