EU-backed Central Asia talks in Ashgabat focus on skills for the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor

Officials from the five Central Asian states met in Ashgabat on 13 and 14 October to discuss the workforce skills needed to run the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor, the trade route that links Central Asia to the Caspian Sea and onward to Europe, according to the EU delegation to Turkmenistan.

The fifth High-Level Group meeting of the DARYA initiative was organised by the European Training Foundation (ETF) with support from the Turkmen authorities. Deputy ministers and senior officials for education and labour from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan took part, alongside EU Special Representative for Central Asia Eduards Stiprais, ETF Director Pilvi Torsti and representatives of the European Commission. The EBRD, the German agency GIZ and several embassies also attended.

What was on the agenda

The first day covered national priorities on skills and transport connectivity, a presentation of the EU’s Global Gateway approach and a panel on transport and logistics with the EBRD. On the second day, participants heard an ETF study on energy-efficiency skills in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, discussed how to monitor labour-market needs in transport and logistics, and looked at a mapping of skills providers around the Kazakh port of Aktau. The Regional Skills Roadmap was presented, and the meeting closed with the Ashgabat Policy Messages.

According to the EU delegation, participants identified shared obstacles: qualifications that are hard to compare across borders, limited recognition of non-formal learning, and gaps in shared labour-market data. Ideas for further work include a regional approach to transport and logistics qualifications, common methods for analysing labour-market needs, and practical pilots for specific occupations.

Background

DARYA is funded by the EU with 10 million euros and implemented by the ETF from 2022 to 2027. The EU delegation links the work to the 2019 EU Strategy for Central Asia and to commitments from the first EU-Central Asia summit in Samarkand in 2025. The corridor, often discussed alongside the Middle Corridor, also featured in a recent Chinese readout of talks in Baku, which Geopolitiki covered in Wang Yi and Fidan meet in Baku: China readout cites Belt and Road, Middle Corridor and COP31.