A Snapshot of the Trans-Caspian Trade in 2016
These slides provide a snapshot of the trans-Caspian trade, based on the
United Nations International Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade) data and use the export and import figures reported by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, and Turkey. Trade partners records of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan were used for bilateral trade values and shares because of the lack of export and import data in 2016 reported by these countries. Since not all countries reported on their trade numbers with these three countries, the estimates of the total trans-Caspian trade include only exports and imports of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia and Turkey.
Trans-Caspian Exports and Imports
Based on these estimates, total Trans-Caspian exports amounted to $194.7B and imports to $250.8B with a total trade deficit of $56.1B in 2016. Turkey accounts for the overwhelming majority of the trans-Caspian trade (about 74% of total exports and about 79% of the total imports). Kazakhstan’s share is the second-largest (19% in exports and 10% in imports), and Azerbaijan’s share was the third-largest (4.67% in exports and 3.39% in imports). This pattern is consistent with the difference in the size of these countries’ economies in 2016; Turkey’s GDP was 6.4 times larger than Kazakhstan’s GDP, which was 3.5 times larger than Azerbaijan’s GDP.
Trade Partnerships
In 2016, the EU was the largest trade partner of the trans-Caspian states: it was a destination for 47.2% of total trans-Caspian exports and origin of 35.3% of total trans-Caspian imports. The United States, China, and Russia accounted for roughly similar shares of the trans-Caspian exports in the same year - 3.8%, 3.2% and 3.7%, respectively. However, these countries accounted for twice as much share of the imports in 2016; China- 13.3%, Russia- 11.4%, and the US - 5.3 %. Almost all of the trans-Caspian states trade more with the EU, the United States, Russia and China than they do with each other. However, trade within Central Asia and the Caucasus is greater than it is between these two regions.
