Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan: strong, sustained growth, 1987–2024

One of the world's most closed economies, Turkmenistan sits on some of the largest natural-gas reserves anywhere, and since independence in 1991 its state-dominated economy has risen and fallen with gas export volumes, increasingly sold to China; independent economic data are scarce. Between 1987 and 2024, Turkmenistan's GDP per capita grew from $675 to $6,857 (current US$), a compound annual growth rate of 6.5% — strong, sustained growth. Annual GDP growth averaged 5.7% with a year-to-year standard deviation of 9.1 points, reflecting considerable volatility and periodic crises. Structurally, agriculture's share of the economy moved from 28.0% to 12.2% of GDP (a classic decline as the economy industrialized/modernized), while services rose from 32.0% to 50.4% of GDP, underscoring a shift toward a services-driven economy. On human development, life expectancy rose from 60.2 to 70.2 years, while tertiary school enrollment moved from 22.3% to 20.4%, while the urban population share grew from 47.2% to 47.1%.

What this growth cost: Growth was not without cost: per-capita CO2 emissions rose from 10.50 to 10.86 tonnes CO2e per person; income inequality (Gini index) widened from 40.8 to 40.8; the poverty headcount ratio increased from 35.1% to 35.1%.