Politico-economic aspects of strategic trade control in Central Asian countries

As a piece of interdisciplinary research, the thesis aims to consider the economic
effects of a political tool such as strategic trade control after its adoption and
implementation in various Central Asian countries, namely Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
To study the economic effects of strategic trade controls in Central Asian countries, the
structure of the thesis is built on understanding the political and historical backgrounds
of implemented control systems and at grasping the current status of control systems
based on the descriptive analysis of strategic trade control’s elements by applying the
3WH method (“Why? What? Who? and How?”). It then analyses the economic effects of
adopting and implementing control systems by applying two approaches to examine
the implications of dual-use technology transfer.
First, to explore the impact of strategic trade control on trade flows (exports and
imports) of dual-use items.
The analysis showed that states did not experience decreasing exports and imports
in three sets of HS codes of dual-use items in 14 countries. However, the results for the
group of Central Asian countries are different, with primarily negative impacts observed
on trade flows. These states experienced a decline in trade flows, primarily on exports,
for three sets of Harmonised System (HS) codes due to the legislation enacted on
strategic trade control, law and control list. The most adverse impacts were identified in
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Second, to analyse the impact of imports of dual-use technology on total factor
productivity.
The analysis showed that the imports of dual-use technologies had a minor but
positive impact on total factor productivity in 14 countries. However, due to missing
values in variables of total factor productivity, this positive impact works only in the case
of two countries of Central Asia: Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
For the analysis, three sets of data have been used from 1995 to 2018: 11 HS of dualuse
technologies, 111 HS codes of more technological strategic commodities, and 35 HS
codes of more dual-use technological strategic commodities.
The 14 countries examined included Armenia, Belarus, Belgium, China, Estonia,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Russia, Singapore, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, the
USA, and Uzbekistan. These countries were selected based on country selection criteria
in a non-random selection.
The panel data methods and ordinary least squares were applied as econometric
tools.