NOV. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – An earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter Scale struck southern Kyrgyzstan, around 20km south-east of Osh, monitoring websites reported. There were no reports of casualties and it is not clear, yet, how deep the earthquake was.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 257, published on Nov. 20 2015)
NOV. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Prices in Armenia grew by 4.4% in the first 10 months of the year, media quoted the National Statistics Service as saying, pointing to high overall inflation for 2015.
Inflation has forced its way back onto the top of Central Bankers’ agenda this year. A collapse in local currencies’ values against the US dollar has triggered a sharp rise in prices for energy imports and domes- tic electricity production.
Inflation in Armenia is probably lagging inflation in neighbouring Georgia because the government has chosen to suck up the cost of the electricity price rises rather than pass
it on to consumers after a series of major demonstrations in the summer. In Georgia, the government has more successfully passed the cost of the electricity production on to consumers.
But, importantly, with another two months of the year to be factored into the final calculation, inflation in Armenia is already running above the initial estimates in the 2015 budget.
Trade turnover is also down, 20% lower in the first 10 months of the year compared to the same period in 2014. This is generally in-line with other economies across the Central Asia and South Caucasus region.
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(News report from Issue No. 257, published on Nov. 20 2015)
NOV. 13/16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Russian miner Polymetal upgraded gold reserve estimates at its Kyzyl mine in eastern Kazakhstan and said it had bought a 75% stake in Armenian diamond mine Lichkvaz that it didn’t already own.
Both the reserve upgrade at Kyzyl and the buyout of Lichkvaz will give the mining industries in Armenia and Kazakhstan a major boost.
At the Bakyrchik mine at its Kyzyl project, Polymetal said that a feasibility study had upgraded the size of gold reserves there by 8% to 29.2m tonnes.
Polymetal will run further exploration works until the end of 2016 and expects to reach full output capacity at the mine in 2019. Polymetal said it is ready to invest $328m for the next phase of the project.
Polymetal CEO Vitaly Nesis said in a statement: “With significantly reduced capital expenditure, compelling high-grade reserves and straight- forward execution plan, Kyzyl is set to become a significant free cash flow contributor for Polymetal.”
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(News report from Issue No. 257, published on Nov. 20 2015)
NOV. 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – There are still hundreds of teething problems that Kyrgyzstan has to overcome to successfully complete its integration into the Kremlin-lead Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), the country’s representative on the EEU’s board, Danil Ibraev, told media. Kyrgyzstan joined the group, which also includes Belarus, Kazakhstan and Armenia, in August. Kyrgyz business owners have complained about bureaucracy.
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(News report from Issue No. 257, published on Nov. 20 2015)
NOV. 12 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan released Murod Juraev, a 63-year-old former MP, from prison after 21 years. He was jailed for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government, although human rights groups have said this is a fabrication. Observers linked Mr Juraev’s release to a visit this month to Uzbekistan by US Secretary of State John Kerry.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kyrgyz Central Bank intervened in the currency market, selling around $14m on Friday to halt the fall of the som. It still fell 3% over the week finishing at 72.1/$1.
In Kazakhstan, the tenge was stable at 307/$1, although it reached a record low of 312/$1 on Monday.
The Georgian lari was stable at 240/$1 throughout the week.
In Armenia and Uzbekistan, currencies fell faster than previously. The Armenian dram lost 1% to 480.9/$1 and the Uzbek sum fell by 0.5% to just above 2,700/$1 on the official market. On the Black Market, the US dollar is reportedly selling at 6,200sum.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The head of the US Navy, Ray Mabus, met with Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliyev in Baku. No details of the meeting were released but the Caspian Sea has grown in importance over the past few years with the re-emergence of Iran and an increase of oil and gas supplies from Central Asia to the South Caucasus.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A Georgian lawyer accused police of beating him for several hours after he visited a client at a Tbilisi police station, sparking outrage across Georgia’s social media and jibes of hypocrisy against the authorities.
Police brutality is a sensitive political issue in Georgia. The ruling Georgian Dream coalition has accused the previous administration of Mikheil Saakashvili’s United National Movement of presiding over a regime built around repression and fear.
Giorgi Mdinaradze, the lawyer, said that he had been to hospital with bruises and cuts to his face after the beating.
“They [policemen] put my hands in cuffs and I could not even cover face with hands as they were beating me for five or ten minutes,” media quoted him as saying.
Mr Mdinaradze works for Legal Aid, a government funded group that gives legal advice and support to people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford it.
One of the ruling Georgian Dream’s main challenges against the United National Movement party was a case against former defence minister Bacho Akhalaia. He was sent to prison last year for ordering inmates at a prison to be tortured in 2006 when he was the prisons minister.
Police said that they have opened an investigation into the alleged beating of Mr Mdinaradze, the lawyer. On Nov. 13, Georgian media reported that they had arrested a senior policeman in the case.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The amount of cash in Kyrgyzstan’s banking system held in foreign currencies jumped by 6.7% to nearly 65% between January and August, the Central Bank said according to Kyrgyz media reports.
This is a steep rise and highlights a lack of confidence in Kyrgyzstan’s som. It has lost around 26% of its value against the US dollar this year despite repeated interventions by the Central Bank to prop it up.
Inflation has also increased, although this has slowed over the past couple of months, pressuring people’s savings.
Interest rates are at a 10%, lower than they were at the start of the year but higher than at any time since 2012.
Like its neighbours, Kyrgyzstan has been struggling to deal with the fallout from a deepening economic malaise which has hit the region. One of its biggest problems has been a sharp drop in remittances sent back to Kyrgyzstan from workers in Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev flew to Tbilisi for a meeting with Georgia’s President Giorgi Margvelashvili. Officially, the clearly good-natured meeting only yielded promises of a deeper relationship but energy links were likely to have been discussed. Georgia is an important transit country for Azerbaijani gas en route to Turkey and Europe.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)