From Paris to Tashkent: How Cooperation Between Turkmenistan and Rothschild & Co Is Taking Shape
The website orient.tm reported on the large-scale business negotiations held during the visit of a Turkmen delegation to Paris in September 2023. As part of the official visit to France, the delegation conducted dozens of meetings and negotiations with representatives of the French business community.
The delegation was headed by Rashid Meredov, Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of Turkmenistan and Minister of Foreign Affairs. During the visit, bilateral talks were held with a wide range of French organizations and companies, including financial institutions such as Coface, UBAF, Société Générale CIB, and Credit Agricole; industrial and technology corporations including Thales, Airbus, TotalEnergies, MBDA, Bouygues, and Vinci; as well as the France–Turkmenistan Chamber of Commerce, the French Healthcare network, the IB2C France Federation of Landscape Architects, and Cifal. A broad range of cooperation issues was discussed, and promising areas for future collaboration were identified. Rothschild & Co was also among the participants in these discussions.
Over the years of Turkmenistan’s independence, French companies have become reliable partners in implementing major projects across various sectors of the country’s economy. Today, French businesses are present in numerous segments of the Turkmen market, including energy, oil and gas, communications and telecommunications, agriculture, construction, healthcare, education, culture, and tourism.
On June 16–18, 2026, within the framework of the Tashkent International Investment Forum, which brought together key figures from the global financial and business community, a panel session titled “The Future of Corporate Governance” was held. The discussion focused on one of the most important foundations of the business and investment environment. The session was moderated by Gian Piero Cigna, Head of Financial Law at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
Among the speakers were Abdulla Abduqadirov, Acting Director of the Agency for Strategic Development and Reforms under the President of Uzbekistan; Tarek Mansour, Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company; Ferdinand Tuinstra, Member of the Advisory Board of Chapter Zero Uzbekistan; Dmitry Avdosyev, CEO of AVDO; and Baroness Arielle Malard de Rothschild, Global Partner at Rothschild & Co and Chair for Central and Eastern Europe.
The session provided an in-depth analysis of the evolution of corporate governance systems in frontier markets. Participants discussed how corporate governance is moving beyond a mere set of formal compliance requirements and becoming a key factor in attracting major strategic investments and significantly increasing corporate value. It was noted that relations between governments and major investors are entering a new stage aimed at ensuring the sustainability of reforms in strategic sectors. Speakers emphasized that Uzbekistan is open not to those seeking only cheap access to resources and short-term gains, but to long-term investors committed to sustainable development.
Speaking at the session, Arielle Malard de Rothschild highly praised Uzbekistan’s economic reforms and political stability as factors driving foreign direct investment. She identified the quality of decision-making, clear accountability, and transparent commercial discipline as essential elements for earning investor confidence.
According to her, “Implementing reforms while maintaining economic growth is far from easy, and this is a remarkable achievement that reflects political stability. Foreign investment depends not only on growth and profitability but also on trust in the governance system. Investors rarely invest in governance structures themselves—they invest in how governance functions in practice.
While the state maintains its role in strategic sectors, we focus on three key elements when assessing investor confidence: the quality of decisions, clarity of accountability, and a balance between public interests and commercial discipline. Companies that attract long-term capital are not those that never face challenges, but those whose governance systems enable them to overcome difficulties and solve problems effectively.”
During the same forum, an Orient correspondent asked the Baroness directly about the potential for advising Turkmen companies on IPO-related matters. In response, she confirmed that Rothschild & Co had already engaged in preliminary dialogue with the authorities of Turkmenistan and saw considerable prospects for future cooperation. She emphasized that the bank highly values the interest shown by Turkmen state-owned companies in accessing public capital markets and is prepared to offer its extensive international experience, global best practices, and worldwide investor network.
The Baroness also expressed interest in moving the dialogue into a practical phase and indicated the bank’s readiness to consider providing advisory services on IPOs, strategic investments, and structural reforms. Her remarks publicly reaffirmed Rothschild & Co’s intention to continue cooperation with Turkmenistan. In neighboring Uzbekistan, the firm is already involved in the reform of major state-owned assets, including preparations for the IPO of Uzbekneftegaz.
This demonstrates the bank’s practical experience in Central Asia and its expertise in restructuring state-owned enterprises and preparing them for public market listings. Such regional experience may prove highly relevant to similar processes in Turkmenistan.
Thus, the dialogue between the Turkmen side and Rothschild & Co was initiated in 2023 during extensive negotiations with the French business community, where priority areas of cooperation, including the financial and banking sector, were identified. At the international forum in Tashkent in June 2026, the bank not only publicly confirmed its interest in working with Turkmen state-owned companies—including potential advisory services on IPOs and strategic investments—but also outlined its vision of corporate governance as a key factor in building investor confidence, a principle directly applicable to reform processes across the region.
