NOV. 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan disbanded its energy ministry and reinvented it as a holding company under the ministry of environment. It will hold all the government’s stakes in its various energy projects. The reasons for the transformation have not been made clear.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia wants to increase exports of electricity, natural resources minister, Levon Shahverdyan, said, more evidence that it wants to become a region energy exporter. Iran and Georgia are both dealing with power shortages.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan will sign an expanded partnership agreement with the EU next month, according to PM Karim Massimov. Speaking at a forum on Eurasian economic integration, Mr Massimov said Kazakhstan wanted to build on the Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement it signed last year.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan will host the official groundbreaking ceremony for the TAPI pipeline, which will pump gas from fields in the east of the country to consumers in India, via Afghanistan and Pakistan, on Dec. 13. This is important because TAPI has been spoken of for decades.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — German industrial company Henkel started construction work at its first factory in Georgia. The new €6m ($6.5m) plant will open in 2016 and produce adhesive materials, one of Henkel’s core businesses. In the medium-term, Henkel plans to export its production to Armenia and Azerbaijan.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Sales of cars by US-Uzbek joint venture GM Uzbekistan to Russia fell by almost 50% in the first 10 months of 2015, to just over 17,000, local media reported. GM Uzbekistan’s share in the Russian market, its most important market, has also fallen to 1.3% from 1.7% in 2014.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh Central Bank approved a request to modify the shareholder composition of Kaspi Bank. President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s nephew Kairat Satybaldy and Mikhail Lomtadze, chairman of Kaspi Bank, transferred their shares and joined the holding company JSC Kaspi, headed by Kaspi Bank director Vyacheslav Kim. Kaspi Bank is the 6th largest bank in Kazakhstan by assets.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan wracked up a $4b current account deficit in the first nine months of 2015, the Central Bank said, a direct consequence of the fall in the price of oil and gas — its main exports.
This deficit compares with a $6b surplus in the same period last year and shows the impact of the collapse in energy and commodities prices.
The volume of Kazakhstan’s oil and commodities exports was the same in the first nine months of this year compared to last year but they dropped, heavily, in value, earning Kazakhstan far less cash.
The Central Bank data will intensify pressure on the Kazakh government to diversify its economy away from oil and gas.
And Kazakhstan’s monetary policy also played a role in current account deficit too.
Until the Central Bank abandoned its US dollar peg in August, after stubbornly refusing to devalue alongside the Russian rouble, Kazakh exports to Russia were just too expensive. And this hurt Kazakh industry. Russia is one of its main export market.
And this showed up in Kazakhstan’s trade balance. Although still positive, it shrank by almost two thirds. In Jan-Sept 2015, Kazakhstan’s exports exceeded imports by $10.7b, a drop from $30.6b during the same period in 2014.
These figures are a stark reminder of the impact of the regional economic malaise on Kazakhstan. The 40% devaluation of the tenge after the Central Bank ditched its US dollar peg will help Kazakh exporters but the government really needs an increase in oil and gas prices to restore its revenues.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — South Korean Samsung Engineering signed an agreement with Uzbekneftegaz to build a petrochemical plant in Uzbekistan. Samsung said the new aromatics plant is still at its conceptual design phase and did not say when it would be built. Uzbekneftegaz, Uzbekistan’s state-owned oil and gas company, has already collaborated with Samsung on a $700m polymer plan.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Healthy Water, the Georgian-Swiss company that produces the Nabeghavi brand of mineral water, will build a new factory in the western Guria region to expand its product line and increase its share of Georgia’s valuable bottled water market.
The new €30m ($32m) plant will open in 2016 near Batumi in western Georgia and add six bottling lines to the company’s production chain.
Healthy Water also plans to start producing lemonade, fruit juices and iced-tea. Funding for the new factory comes from a number of backers, including the EBRD.
As well as producing the upmarket Nabeghlavi brand, with its iconic green glass bottles and branding, Healthy Water also produces bottled water under the Bakhmaro brand. In 2014, it was the second-largest bottled water company in Georgia behind Borjomi, the most famous Georgian bottled water company.
Borjomi, with its slightly salty taste, dominates the Georgian bottled water market with 41% of the market.
Healthy Water has a 36% market share, split between its brands.
Healthy Water’s real aimmaybe the lucrative export market. It already exports its Nabeghlavi and Bakhmaro brands to North America, eight European Union countries, China, Russia and Turkey.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)