Oman Investment Authority (OIA) has assembled an alliance of sovereign wealth funds and investment institutions to establish a fund for Central Asia and the Caucasus with a target size of about $500 million, or 192.2 million Omani rials, the sovereign wealth fund said on Saturday.
The founding agreement for the Central Asia and Caucasus Fund is scheduled to be signed in early November, OIA said in a statement carried by the Oman News Agency. The fund will be managed by an Omani company led by Omani staff, it said.
The fund will invest in logistics, renewable energy, mining, food and agriculture, healthcare and other industries in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, according to the statement. It will seek capital from sovereign wealth funds, investment institutions and strategic investors.
The Eurasian Development Bank said in a statement on Friday that it was a co-founder of the vehicle, which it called the Central Asia and Caucasus Private Equity Fund. The bank named China Investment Corporation, OIA, the Fund for Reconstruction and Development of Uzbekistan, Turkish pension fund OYAK and China’s Shenwan Hongyuan Securities as the other co-founders. Other sovereign funds, regional development banks and pension funds are expected to join later, it said.
Mulham bin Bashir Al Jarf, Deputy President for Investment at OIA, said the authority’s role in leading the alliance reflected the confidence of sovereign wealth funds and international investment institutions in its ability to build partnerships and attract capital to promising markets.
OIA subsidiaries Asyad Group, Minerals Development Oman and OQ Group are studying opportunities in logistics, mining and energy in Central Asian markets, the authority said.
Foreign direct investment into the five countries rose 16.6% to about $4.64 billion by the end of 2025, according to figures cited by OIA. The region’s average economic growth was about 7% in 2025, compared with global growth of 3.5%, the authority said, citing the International Monetary Fund.
Daniyar Imangaliyev, Deputy Chairman of the Eurasian Development Bank’s Management Board, said companies in the region needed long-term capital to grow and enter new markets. The bank and Oman’s Ministry of Finance signed a framework agreement on October 6 that began the process of Oman joining the lender.
The fund builds on existing OIA partnerships in the region, including the Omani-Uzbek Investment Company, set up with Uzbekistan’s reconstruction fund in 2009, and a 2025 partnership with Azerbaijan Investment Holding, Times of Oman reported.
