Central Asia — twenty-five years after the breakup of the USSR☆

Central Asia consists of five culturally and ethnically diverse countries that have followed different paths to political and economic transformation in the past 25 years since achieving independence from the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have in relative terms made strides in market reforms, while Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have not yet completed their transitions to market economies. Tajikistan represents an intermediate case.