Names: conventional long form: none conventional short form: Turkmenistan local long form: none local short form: Turkmenistan former: Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic

Capital City: Ashgabat (Ashkhabad)

Population: 5,042,920 (July 2006 est.)

GDP Per Capita: $8,900 (2006 est.)

Currency: Turkmen manat (TMM)

Languages: Turkmen 72%, Russian 12%, Uzbek 9%, other 7%

Total Area: total: 488,100 sq km land: 488,100 sq km water: NEGL slightly larger than California

Region: Asia

Industries: natural gas, oil, petroleum products, textiles, food processing

Agriculture: cotton, grain; livestock

Resources: petroleum, natural gas, sulfur, salt

Labor Force: 2.32 million (2003 est.)
agriculture: 48.2% industry: 13.8% services: 37% (2003 est.)

Exports: $5.421 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.)
gas, crude oil, petrochemicals, cotton fiber, textiles

Imports: $3.936 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.)
machinery and equipment, chemicals, foodstuffs

Overview: Turkmenistan is a largely desert country with intensive agriculture in irrigated oases and large gas and oil resources. One-half of its irrigated land is planted in cotton; formerly it was the world's tenth-largest producer. Poor harvests in recent years have led to an almost 50% decline in cotton exports. With an authoritarian ex-Communist regime in power and a tribally based social structure, Turkmenistan has taken a cautious approach to economic reform, hoping to use gas and cotton sales to sustain its inefficient economy. Privatization goals remain limited. In 1998-2005, Turkmenistan suffered from the continued lack of adequate export routes for natural gas and from obligations on extensive short-term external debt. At the same time, however, total exports rose by an average of 15% per year in 2003-06, largely because of higher international oil and gas prices. In 2006, Ashgabat raised its natural gas export prices to its main customer, Russia, from $66 per thousand cubic meters (tcm) to $100 per tcm. Overall prospects in the near future are discouraging because of widespread internal poverty, a poor educational system, government misuse of oil and gas revenues, and Ashgabat's unwillingness to adopt market-oriented reforms. Turkmenistan's economic statistics are state secrets, and GDP and other figures are subject to wide margins of error. In particular, the rate of GDP growth is uncertain.

_{CIA World Book}

In 2007 Missouri had no exports to Turkmenistan.