This is one of a series of profiles on the republics of the former Soviet Union that are intended to provide basic reference material as a backdrop for assessing future developments in these new states. The profile provides a description of the geography, population, and economy of Turkmenistan and compares its level of development, growth, and social welfare with that in Turkey and Mexico.

International comparisons, particularly for aggregate measures such as GNP, are difficult to make because of differences in definitions and methods used by various countries in compiling statistics. International currency exchange rates are deficient for this purpose because they do not reflect relative purchasing power of different currencies over the whole range of output of goods and services included in GNP. Because of the lack of these parities, alternative measures have been selected. These measures include primarily data for which comparable international statistics were available.

For the most part, official statistics in the public domain were used in compiling the tables and other numerical entries. The annual statistical abstracts for Turkmenistan, Narodnoye Khozyaystvo Turkmenskoy SSSR, (National Economy of Turkmenistan SSR), 1989 and 1990 were the most important sources of data. Extensive use was also made of Stranychleny SNG: Statisticheskiy ezhegodnik (Statistical Yearbook of the Members of the Commonwealth of Independent States), 1992: Trud v SSSR (Labor in the USSR) and the Perepis' naseleniya, 1989 (Population Census). Reference country comparisons relied on the information found in their yearbooks and in various UN and OECD publications covering national accounts, food consumption, and the like. More detailed data on the profile states are included in the appendix.