DEC. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The tenge/$ rate has reached a balanced position, Kazakh PM Karim Massimov said, suggesting that the national currency will not lose much more value against the US dollar. By Dec. 9, the tenge traded at around 309/$1. It has lost around 40% of its value this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia deployed seven attack helicopters to an air base outside Yerevan, Russian media reported, strengthening its operations in Armenia. Russia has a large garrison based at Gyumri, Armenia’s second city. Russia didn’t specify why it had strengthened its base.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev flew to China for talks with Chinese president Xi Jingping to discuss developing the South Caucasus as a transport corridor. Azerbaijan has been boosting its status as a gateway between the east and west.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The London correspondent of Kazakhstan’s state-owned Khabar TV station and its 24.kz website, Bela Kudaibergenova, resigned saying: “I just can’t lie any more”.
On a Facebook post, Ms Kudaibergenova, who has been in London for six years, said that she decided to quit when she was ordered to spin a dowdy event organised by the Kazakh embassy as a great success which showed the love that the British people have for Kazakhstan.
“That was it. I felt that enough was enough, and I could not do it anymore,” Ms Kudaibergenova told RFE/RL in an interview.
Free speech activists have previously criticised Kazakhstan for crack- downs and for using state-run media to sugar coat reality.
After Ms Kudaibergenova’s resignation, twitter and social media lit up with messages of support.
The reaction of the official media in Kazakhstan, though, was less ecstatic. The Khabar news channel said that a planned move from London had triggered her resignation.
“We never lie,” said Arman Seitmamyut, head of of Khabar TV.
“I personally demand that all our journalists double check all their work and the accuracy of everything.”
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s public utilities company Barqi Tojik said it had stopped exporting electricity to Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan because of a seasonal shortage of supply, showing the weakness of Tajikistan’s power generating infrastructure.
The decision to halt exports also poses major questions over Tajikistan’s plans to become a regional power exporter. Only last week, foreign ministers from the countries involved in the CASA-1000 project signed a final agreement in Istanbul which should power the project forward.
The CASA-1000 project will link Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to Pakistan, which is short in power, via Afghanistan.
The export cut by Barqi Tojik is a routine measure to satisfy domestic demand during the peak winter season but the company said hydro-power plants suffered from lower- than-normal production this year.
“Water levels are today roughly 10% lower than last year,” said Barqi Tojik in a statement on Dec. 8.
For CASA-1000 to be a success, Tajikistan needs to build more hydropower capacity.
Shutting off power supplies to Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan during the winter months highlights this issue.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan appeared to bow to international pressure and release a frail- looking Leyla Yunus, one of the country’s most high-profile human rights activists, from prison where she had been serving an 8-1⁄2 year sentence for fraud and tax evasion.
She will re-join her husband, Arif who was sent to prison at the same time but was released earlier on health grounds, in their Baku home.
The West has accused the authorities in Baku of cracking-down on dissents over the past few years.
Human rights activists welcomed the release of Leyla Yunus, although she is not allowed to leave Baku and her fraud and tax evasion conviction still stands.
They also said, though, that other so-called political prisoners needed to be released. This includes journalist Khadija Ismayilova who was sent to prison earlier this year.
Ismayilova was a relatively well- known RFE/RL journalist in Azerbaijan who had reported on top level corruption in Azerbaijan.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s energy minister Kakha Kaladze met with Alexei Miller, the chairman of Russia’s Gazprom, in Luxembourg to discuss increasing imports of Russian gas. No deal has been signed although even the talks have stirred controversy in Georgia where memories of the 2008 war against Russia are still very fresh.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkish producerCoca Cola Icecek will open its second plant in Kazakhstan in the first half of 2016, the chairman of the government agency KAZNEX INVESTBorisbi Zhangurazov told media.Coca Cola Icecek will operate the plant, located in Astana, which cost around $70m to build. Kazakhstan is the largest market in Central Asia for Coca Cola Icecek.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC.11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) are picking up again in the South Caucasus and Central Asia. After a difficult year hooked around the fall in the rouble and the drop in oil prices, investors have appeared to regain confidence in the economies of Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Or at least they have decided to just get on with it and deal with the economic downturn.
At least this is what the numbers show.
In Armenia FDI, measured by Central Banks as inflow minus outflow, reached $260m in the first 9 months of the year, a 17% increase compared to the same period last year.
In Georgia, although down 17% compared to the first three quarters of 2014, FDI grew progressively throughout the year, to reach just above $1b at the end of September.
Kyrgyzstan, which saw a surge of FDI in the first half of the year, might be on track to keep the trend going due to renewed confidence in the country’s extractive sector.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)
DEC. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko flew into Ashgabat for talks with Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berymukhamedov on how to develop bilateral relations next year. Belarusian companies are involved in mining and fertiliser production in Turkmenistan. Mr Lukashenko was returning from Vietnam.
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(News report from Issue No. 260, published on Dec. 11 2015)