BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 5. Ahead of the
upcoming C5+1 Summit, U.S. experts emphasize economic
diversification, sustainable growth, and regional integration as
key priorities for cooperation with Central Asian countries. The
summit is expected to highlight opportunities for trade,
infrastructure development, and private-sector-led growth,
alongside strategic engagement in critical minerals and renewable
energy.
“From the U.S. perspective the priorities include helping
Central Asian states deepen economic diversification and enhance
resilience by linking them more fully into global value chains
rather than simply serving as raw-material exporters,” Jennifer
Brick Murtazashvili, Professor and Founding Director of the Center
for Governance and Markets at the University of Pittsburgh, told
Trend.
She noted that key areas of focus will be trade facilitation and
transit connectivity, investment in infrastructure, digital
networks and logistics, and private-sector-led growth rather than
purely state-to-state deals.
A rapidly growing area of interest is critical minerals and rare
earths, which the U.S. sees as essential for high-tech,
clean-energy, defense, and battery-manufacturing industries.
Sustainability, green growth, and improved governance are also
expected to play a prominent role.
Murtazashvili explained how the U.S. envisions cooperation
within the C5+1 framework in sectors like energy, trade, and
infrastructure.
“In energy the U.S. sees opportunities in supporting
renewables—solar, wind, and hydro—modernizing grids, enabling
cross-border electricity trade, and reducing system
vulnerabilities. In trade and infrastructure, it is interested in
strengthening transit corridors across Central Asia, upgrading
ports, rail and logistics nodes, and improving customs and
regulatory frameworks,” she said.
She emphasized that critical minerals and rare earths represent
a newer but rapidly rising strand of cooperation.
“The U.S. aims to engage Central Asian countries not only as
raw-material suppliers but also as nodes in processing, refining,
and possibly manufacturing value chains. U.S. tools such as
finance, regulatory cooperation, and risk mitigation will be
stressed, and the emphasis will be on long-term value-added and
transparency rather than one-off extraction deals,” she noted.
Murtazashvili also highlighted the role of U.S. businesses in
supporting regional development and integration.
“U.S. firms can bring advanced technology in clean energy,
mining and processing, digital logistics, and supply-chain
optimization; participate in value-chain development for critical
minerals; help build regional integration through logistics hubs
and transit corridors; and contribute to improved governance and
environmental and social standards in large extraction or
infrastructure projects,” she said.
She added that Central Asia has the resources but often lacks
processing capacity and integration into global value chains. For
U.S. businesses to succeed, clear policy signals, risk-mitigation
tools, and local institutional capacity are essential.
Sustainable and “green” economic growth will also be one of the
central themes at the summit.
“The green growth agenda will feature promoting renewable energy
deployment and energy-efficiency upgrades; connecting green growth
to transit and trade infrastructure so that corridors and logistics
are not simply high-carbon; and ensuring that any ramp-up of
rare-earth/critical-minerals production and processing is
accompanied by environmental safeguards, labor and community
protections, and local value-addition,” Murtazashvili said.
She also noted the benefits of the C5+1 format for strengthening
economic and trade ties.
“The C5+1 format is multilateral rather than purely bilateral,
enabling cross-border thinking and regional supply chains rather
than isolated deals. It provides a predictable platform for
engagement through working groups and follow-ups and allows the
U.S. to align across multiple sectors under one umbrella,”
Murtazashvili explained.
She concluded that the format particularly benefits large-scale
sectors such as rare earths and transit infrastructure, allowing
engagement with multiple states while supporting connectivity and
regional integration.
“For the Central Asian countries, the summit delivers a visible
mechanism for U.S. engagement that can attract investment, build
credibility, and send signals to other global players,”
Murtazashvili summed up.
To note, the Central Asian region possesses a significant
proportion of global reserves in various critical minerals: 38.6
percent of manganese ore, 30.1 percent of chromium, 20 percent of
lead, 12.6 percent of zinc, 8.7 percent of titanium, 5.8 percent of
aluminum, 5.3 percent each of copper and cobalt, and 5.2 percent of
molybdenum. These materials are essential for a wide array of
sustainable energy technologies, including solar panels, wind
turbines, and battery storage systems. Significantly, Central Asian
nations currently position themselves within the top 20 global
producers of numerous vital resources.
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