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Stock market: Central Asia Metals, KAZ Minerals

MAY 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Copper prices dipped below the psychological threshold of $2/lb in mid January, for the first time since 2009, and it has bit of a roller-coaster ride since.

Shares of Central Asia Metals and KAZ Minerals, two Kazakhstan– focused producers, have followed copper’s ups and downs.

As shown in the graph above, shares in KAZ Minerals, which mines copper in northern and eastern Kazakhstan, have fluctuated more dramatically with copper prices.

Shares in Central Asia Metals, have been more stable.

With copper prices now sliding back towards $2/lb, share prices for both Central Asia Metals and KAZ Minerals are falling. This week, they were down 5.3% and 9% respectively.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Armenian ministry announces construction of transmission line

MAY 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s ministry of energy said construction of a 220kV transmission line between the Hradzan thermal power plant and the Shinuayr substation will be completed by the end of the year. The 230km-long transmission line will be an important link between power generating centres in Armenia. The World Bank’s International Bank for Reconstruction and Development said it would fund the project with a series of loans.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Kyrgyz court sentences Bakiyev

APRIL 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Kyrgyzstan extended a prison sentence on the widely reviled Maxim Bakiyev, the son of the ousted former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, to 30 years for money laundering and extortion. Bakiyev has been living in London since he fled Kyrgyzstan after a revolution in 2010. In 2015, a transparency group revealed that he owns a mansion in southern England worth an estimated $5m. Kyrgyzstan has applied to have Bakiyev extradited but his lawyers have successfully countered this request by saying that he wouldn’t receive a fair trial in Kyrgyzstan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Electricity output increases in Turkmenistan

MAY 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s ministry of energy reported that in Jan.-April 2016, the country produced 7.6b kWh of electricity. This is 1.6% higher than the same period last year. Turkmenistan is looking to expand electricity exports to neighbouring Iran and Afghanistan and plans to construct 15 gas turbine power plants by 2020.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Kyrgyz court frees ex-Bishkek mayor

MAY 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A Kyrgyz court freed Nariman Tuleyev, former mayor of Bishkek, after roughly three years in prison. He had been convicted of corruption over a deal to buy Chinese buses and snow removal equipment. It’s unclear exactly why the Kyrgyz authorities had decided to amnesty Tuleyev although there have been allegations that he was beaten in prison.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Kyrgyzstan’s Aktel cuts service

MAY 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz mobile operator Aktel discontinued its mobile services after it let its licence expire. In December 2013, a court in Bishkek declared Aktel bankrupt and said its debt amounted to around $147m. Aktel previously operated under the brand names of Fonex and 7Mobile. It has now transferred its assets, but not its debts, to Jeti Mobile.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Orsu reveals Q1 results in Kazakhstan

MAY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Toronto-listed miner Orsu Metals lost $437,000 in the first quarter of 2016, cutting its losses by around 50% from the same period last year. Most of the company’s losses are now booked for “assets held for sale”. Last month, Orsu agreed to sell its Karchiga and Kogodai mines in Kazakhstan to UAE-registered Karasat Trading for around $10m. After announcing the sale, Orsu de-listed from London’s AIM.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Kyrgyz President uses Victory Day to warn of racism in Russia

BISHKEK, MAY 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a departure from normal diplomatic niceties, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev used the celebration of the Soviet Union’s victory over the Nazis in 1945 to warn of growing racism against workers from Kyrgyzstan in Russia.

Thousands of migrants workers from Kyrgyzstan and the rest of Central Asia travel to work in Russia each year, sending home their salaries but racist attacks in Russia have been on the increase, a rise that some have linked to the economic downturn.

Earlier this month, Russian media reported that a group of skinheads attacked and injured a group of Kyrgyz on the Moscow metro.

In pouring rain at Kyrgyzstan’s Eternal Flame War Memorial, Mr Atambayev said that Russia and Russians should respect their neighbours in Kyrgyzstan more.

“Kyrgyz families shared food and shelter with hundreds of thousands of refugees (from Russia). Most of them soon stayed here forever and became Kyrgyz,” he said.

“I want to give a reminder of this to our brotherly nation, Russia, where unfortunately fascist groups are rising up.”

Heads of states in the former Soviet Union usually use the annual Victory Day parade and celebrations to remind their people of the region’s common cause and their debt to Russia. By using the occasion to highlight racism in Russia, Mr Atambayev was adding emphasis to his comments.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

China states farming deal with Kazakhstan

MAY 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Chinese companies said they will invest around $1.9b in Kazakhstan’s agriculture sector over the next few years, in an effort to boost trade and cooperation through its Silk Road Initiative. Gulmira Isayeva, Kazakhstan’s deputy minister of agriculture, told the FT that Chinese investment will help increase domestic production.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Kazakh leader sets up new ministry of information

ALMATY, MAY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A new information ministry announced last week by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev will likely act as a censor and increase government control over the media, journalists and analysts said.

Mr Nazarbayev announced the Soviet-sounding ministry of information at the same time as he said that planned reforms to the land code would be postponed after they sparked a series of protests across the country.

He blamed a lack of public information about the reforms for the protests and said the new ministry would ease the flow of information from government to the people.

Political analyst Aidos Sarym said he thought that Mr Nazarbayev had been genuinely concerned his land reforms plans had been misunderstood.

“Authorities think that protests are just lack of communication. They think that if they will explain ‘properly’ to people, people will take it,” he said. “Nazarbayev understands that he lost his connection to the majority of population.”

But in an opinion piece on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Russian language website, reporter Svetlana Glushkova said that the government would try to use the new ministry to control social media, one of the few places where some form of free speech still exists in Kazakhstan, more tightly.

“I think the new ministry will increase control over social media, at first. Now you cannot see it [free speech] in TV or newspapers so the real resentment of the people, you will find it only on social media. The truth is there,” she said.

Kuralay Abylgazina, a journalist for a local news agency, agreed. She told the Bulletin that protests against the land reforms had worried the government.

“As of now, the ministry will most likely control content only from government media, but in future it will initiate some laws to regulate press freedom in the country,” she said. “And then we will see if this new government organ is a ministry of censorship.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)