ASHGABAT (Turkmenistan), Jan 1: Buying and selling foreign currency became legal in Turkmenistan on Tuesday, after the government lifted a 10-year ban on money exchange as part of efforts to move the country out of international isolation.

Saparmurat Niyazov — the former president who died in December 2006 after ruling the Central Asian nation since before the Soviet collapse — had ordered currency exchange offices closed in 1998, forcing Turkmen citizens and foreigners to change money on the black market or not at all.

Niyazov’s successor, President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov, has left Turkmenistan’s single-party political system in place, but has taken steps to open the energy-rich country to the outside world and attract foreign investment.

A decree signed by Berdymukhamedov allows citizens of the nation of six million and foreigners to exchange at more than 100 bank branches across Turkmenistan, at a regulated commercial rate similar to the current black market rate of about 20,000 manat per US dollar.

In televised comments, Berdymukhamedov said the move was meant to phase out the black market in currency by 2009 and bridge the gap between the commercial exchange rate and the official rate, now at 6,250 manat per US dollar.

“This decision is aimed at

creating order in the turnover of foreign currency in the national economy, strengthening control over it and creating favourable conditions for a gradual shift to a single exchange rate for the

manat, as well as increasing foreign economic activity and attracting foreign investment,” he said.—AP