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Kazakhstan lowers export duty

FEB. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan will lower its oil export duty in March, Yerbolat Dossayev, minister of economy, said. He said the export duty will now be lowered to $30/tonne from $40/tonne. Mr Dossayev also said that the export tax would be scrapped altogether if the price of oil falls below $25/barrel. Oil producers in Kazakhstan have stopped producing oil because of high export taxes and low prices.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)

Dozens protest for jailed Kazakh PM

FEB. 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Around a dozen protesters in Astana demanded the release from prison of Kazakhstan’s former PM Serik Akhmetov, who is serving a 10-year sentence for corruption. Protests in Kazakhstan, especially supporting former high-ranking officials who have been imprisoned for corruption, are rare.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)

Georgia drops religion bill

FEB. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s parliament unexpectedly dropped a bill that would have made insulting religion a crime. The bill’s sponsor, an MP for the ruling Georgian Dream coalition, withdrew the bill after it ran into a barrage of controversy for effectively clamping down on free speech. The suspicion was that Georgian Dream was using the bill to try and shore up support amongst supporters of Georgia’s Orthodox Church ahead of a parliamentary election later this year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)

Azerbaijan’s CBank increases rates

FEB. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s Central Bank raised its key interest rate for the first time since 2011 to try to bolster its ailing currency. It raised its key interest rate to 5% from 3%. The manat has lost 50% of its value over the past year as oil prices fall. Oil is Azerbaijan’s key export.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)

H&M bans Turkmen cotton

FEB. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Swedish high street retailer H&M said that it has banned its suppliers since December from using cotton sourced from Turkmenistan in any of their products after allegations that the Turkmen authorities use child labour to pick the harvests. H&M, and other retailers, have previously banned suppliers from sourcing cotton from Uzbekistan for similar reasons. Campaigners accused IKEA of using cotton from Turkmenistan in its various products

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)

Kazakh Riot police steps in

FEB. 15/16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Riot police in the southern Kazakh region of Zhambyl broke up a potential race riot after ethnic Kazakhs accused Turks of murdering a 16-year-old boy. Video from the confrontation showed police in full body armour with dogs trying to separate a group of people who had gathered around a house in the village of Burylov. The incident highlights the fragile social spectrum in regional Kazakhstan just as the economy worsens.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)

Turkmen President wants constitutional changes

FEB. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said that he wants the country’s constitution altered to scrap both the upper age limit for presidents and the number of terms they can serve. He made the recommendations through a commission. Parliament officially has to approve the changes before they can be passed into law. The changes would cement Mr Berdmukhamedov’s grip on power.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)

Thales signs radar deal with Georgia

FEB. 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – French technology company Thales signed 2m euro deal to upgrade Georgia’s radar systems. The deal means that Thales will inspect and maintain Georgia’s three main aviation radars over the next five years.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)

Georgian tax changes to knock $400m off government budget

FEB. 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s finance minister, Nodar Khaduri, said 400m lari ($160m) will be cut from the 2016 budget if parliament agrees to a new corporation tax that the government has said will stimulate economic growth.

The Georgian Dream coalition has staked a large amount of political capital on its proposed reforms which will only tax profit that is not re- invested. Government officials have said the idea is to try to encourage more economic activity. All profit is currently taxed.

“These reforms, both income tax and VAT, will reduce this year’s targeted revenues by about 400m lari,” Mr Khaduri, told media.

The government is also tinkering with VAT so that the import of so- called fix assets is VAT free.

$400m represents roughly 5% of the government’s expected total revenue for 2016.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)

Georgia deals with Abkhazia

FEB. 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Georgian government will import extra electricity from Russia to send on to the breakaway Abkhazia region in a short-term deal, media reported. Abkhazia is wholly reliant on the Enguri hydropower plant for its electricity but water levels have reached a critically low level meaning that there have been a series of power outages. The deal shows that despite vicious territorial disputes, Georgia, its breakaway republics and Russia can still pull deals together.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 268, published on Feb. 19 2016)