The Turkmen parliament recently adopted the country’s state budget for 2018 with expected revenues at TMT95.5bn (€22.9bn at the official rate), or TMT8bn less than in 2017 budget, Turkmen opposition-run news website hronikatm.com reported on November 27, citing state-run information agency TDH.

The decline in revenues is tied to ongoing economic troubles the natural gas-dependent Turkmen economy has experienced given low world hydrocarbon prices. Failed energy deals have also been a problem in recent years.

The extent of tightly-controlled Turkmenistan’s economic crisis was underlined on November 6 when officials announced another squeezed limit on cash withdrawals Turkmen citizens are allowed to make from ATMs abroad. Nevertheless, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov raised some eyebrows on October 17 when, despite his country’s economic difficulties, he unveiled Turkmenistan's first golf course, a designer 18-hole attraction in a country where golf is virtually unheard of.

The authorities did not publish 2017 spending statistics and reported that spending is planned at “the same volume as revenues”, thus it looks like the country isn’t planning to abandon its odd spending habits. They noted that 2018 will see further “considerable capital investments” in urban development programmes and construction of “important social and cultural facilities” in Ashgabat and across the country’s provinces. The figures noted social spending would be “no less” than 75%-80% of total budget spending.

The plans appear to be going against the IMF’s recent advice that Turkmenistan should “considerably reduce public investment expenditures”.