JUNE 28 2017 (The Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan Air has asked China’s Hainan Airlines to buy a 49% stake in the company, media reported. It had said earlier in the year that it wanted to sell off a 49% stake but didn’t say to whom. China, which has been investing heavily in Central Asia, was the obvious option. Hainan Airlines has not commented.
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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)
JUNE 29 2017 (The Bulletin) — US Vice-President Mike Pence will visit Georgia in July, the White House said in a statement, a clear signal of support for Georgia. Mr Pence’s visit will be the most high-profile visit from a US politician since Joe Biden’s visit in 2009 when he was Vice-President. George W. Bush visited Tbilisi in 2005 when he was President.
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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)
JUNE 24 2017 (The Bulletin) — Kazakh company AllurGroup has started shipping cars to Dushanbe to form a fleet of taxis for the Tajik capital. The $600,000 deal for 55 Chinese-designed JAC S3s is important as it will keep jobs at the Kostanai-based SaryarkaAvtoProm. The Kazakh car making sector has been under pressure in the current economic downturn.
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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)
TBILISI, JULY 1 2017 (The Bulletin) — The ruling Georgian Dream coalition chose energy minister Kakha Kaladze to be their candidate in an election for the mayor of Tbilisi set for October, a contest that is shaping up to be an early test of the government’s popularity.
Mr Kaladze is a former international football player who played for Georgia and Italian team AC Milan. His main opponent for the Tbilisi mayoral position also has a prominent public persona. Earlier in June, the United National Movement party (UNM) of former President Mikheil Saakasvhili said that it was going to put up Zaal Udumashvili, a well-known news reader for the opposition Rustavi-2 TV channel to be its candidate.
The UNM lost a parliamentary election heavily last year to the Georgian Dream. Analysts have said that without a victory, or at least a strong showing in the contest to win control of Tbilisi City Hall, the UNM could be slipping into irrelevance. Davit Narmania, a Georgian Dream candidate, won the Tbilisi mayoral election in 2014. The Tbilisi mayoral election is the most high-profile of several being held across Georgia’s municipalities in October.
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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)
JULY 1 2017 (The Bulletin) — Musicians in Uzbekistan now have to apply for a licence to post their videos online, rules that officials say are needed to preserve Uzbek traditions and culture. The Uzbek language service of the US- funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that a music video by the Uzbek pop singer Munisa Rizayeva had irked the authorities as being too Hispanic. They said that she had “Hispanicised” words on the music video for her song “Sakramento”.
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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)
JUNE 29 2017 (The Bulletin) — The interior ministers of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan met for the first time in 19 years during a CIS meeting of interior ministers in Dushanbe. The meeting highlights just how far Uzbekistan has moved towards improving its relations with its neighbours since Shavkat Mirziyoyev become president in September 2016. His predecessor Islam Karimov had pushed to isolate Uzbekistan, eschewing regional meetings. Relations with Tajikistan had been particularly strained over plans to build a new dam.
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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)
JUNE 28 2017 (The Bulletin) — The Almaty-based Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) has loaned Yerevan-based Ardshinbank $20m for a three-year period, media reported. Specifically, the loan is to facilitate import-export deals among member states of the EDB. As well as Armenia, these are Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Tajikistan. Other than Tajikistan, they are all members of the Kremlin-lead Eurasian Economic Union.
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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)
JUNE 28 2017 (The Bulletin) — Government spending on infrastructure projects and private sector development have given the Georgian economy a boost and means that it could surpass expectations of GDP growth of 4% this year, economy minister Giorgi Gakharia said in an interview with Reuters. This is important because of all the economies of Central Asia and the South Caucasus, Georgia’s appears to be recovering the fastest from a downturn triggered by a drop in oil prices that hit Russia, the regional economic driver.
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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)
JUNE 27 2017 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan will increase imports of gas condensate from neighbouring Turkmenistan to feed its new refinery at Bukhara, media reported quoting state-owned Turkmengas. There have been no public announcements on an increase in gas to Uzbekistan and no numbers have been released on how much gas will be sent to Uzbekistan from Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan has been looking to broaden its gas purchasing clients.
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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)
JUNE 27 2017 (The Bulletin) — Korea’s LG International and Coca- Cola will be the main sponsors for the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games (AIMAG) to be held in Ashgabat in September, a sports media website reported. AIMAG is seen by Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov as an important prestige occasion and is the first major international sports event that Turkmenistan has hosted.
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(News report from Issue No. 335, published on July 3 2017)