NOV. 27 (The Bulletin) — Wyndam Hotels, one of the world’s biggest hotel franchises, plans to open new sites in Georgia, Uzbekistan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan over the next couple of years, media reported. In total, Wyndam wants to add 35 hotels with 5,700 bedrooms to its portfolio with Georgia being the focus of this growth. It said that it will build seven new hotels with 1,300 bedrooms in Georgia.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.
NOV. 27 (The Bulletin) — Russia has donated military kit worth a reported $12m to Kyrgyzstan, Janes defence and military news website reported. The donation included two Mi-8MT helicopter and two mobile radar kits. Although China has built up strong relations in Central Asia, Russia is still the main military ally.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.
NOV. 27 (The Bulletin) — Swiss train-maker Stadler said that it had agreed to sell 10 five-carriage Flirt units to Azerbaijan’s national railway operator for 115m euros. The Flirt series are Stadlers inter-city trains. Stadler has previously sold sleeping carriages to Azerbaijan in 2014 for its international services and in 2015 and 2018 it signed deals for its double-decker Kiss carriages.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.
NOV. 27 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s government is considering introducing a law that would force cement producers to measure and monitor their air pollution. The move is an indication that governments in the region may start to take more seriously the issue of worsening air quality. Other the past few years, Central Asia’s cities have become choked with car exhaust fumes and factory smog. Feeding demand from a booming construction industry, Uzbekistan’s cement sector is one of its fastest-growing industries.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.
NOV. 26 (The Bulletin) — Uzbek Central Bank chief Mamarizo Nurmuratov said that he may start cutting interest rates from next year as it focuses its attention on trying to beat inflation. Uzbekistan last changed its key interest rate in 2018 when it moved it to 16% from 14%. This month the Central Bank has been handed more power and told to focus on dampening inflation which it expects to hit 13% next year.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.
NOV. 26 (The Bulletin) — Kazakh president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said that he wanted to put forward Nur-Sultan as a potential site for a UN centre for Sustainable Development Goals. Mr Tokayev’s predecessor as Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, always wanted to garner the capital he built with international credibility and accolades.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.
BISHKEK/NOV. 26 — Hundreds of people protested in Bishkek against corruption after a report published by activists accused senior customs officials of taking bribes worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Chanting “power to the people”, demonstrators waved a cartoon of former customs service chief Raimbek Matraimov who, the authors of the report said, was at the head of the corruption scheme. The demonstrators want him prosecuted and the resignation of the heads of the National Security Committee and the anti-corruption service.
Street level politics and demonstrations are a real force in Kyrgyzstan where revolutions in 2005 and 2010 overthrew governments considered corrupt.
In response to the protests, Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov convened a meeting of the National Security Committee. His administration also put out a statement distancing him from any foul play.
But corruption is endemic in Kyrgyzstan, as the report, entitled: “Plunder and patronage in the heart of Central Asia”, described.
“Evidence tells the story of how a vast underground cargo empire run by the Abdukadyrs, a secretive Uyghur clan, systematically funnelled massive bribes to Kyrgyzstan’s customs service,” it said. “It also implicates Raimbek Matraimov, a former top customs official widely seen as so powerful that he is essentially untouchable.”
Central to the report was the evidence of Aierken Saimaiti, an ethnic Uyghur. He was shot dead on Nov. 10 in Istanbul. Before his murder, Saimaiti had told journalists that he had laundered $700m out of Kyrgyzstan.
On Nov. 29, security officials in Bishkek arrested Erkin Sopokov, the former Kyrgyz envoy in Istanbul. His car was found near where Saimaiti had been shot dead.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.
NOV. 26 (The Bulletin) — To a packed audience in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan staged its first foreign opera for nearly 19 years. Foreign operas were banned by former Turkmen leader Sapurmurat Niyazov in 2001 in order to protect Turkmen culture. This ban has only just been lifted by current Turkmen leader Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov who has been president since 2007.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.
NOV. 26 (The Bulletin) — An Armenian soldier was found hanged from a tree at the Dilijan training area in the centre of the country. Media did not give a reason for the hanging but if suicide is confirmed it will worry activists who have accused the military of turning a blind eye to bullying and hazing in its army.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.
ALMATY/NOV. 26 (The Bulletin) — Kazakhstan told the consortium of energy companies developing the Karachaganak gas field in the north of the country that their $1.1b offer to settle a dispute was insufficient.
The dispute has been festering for more than four years, undermining Kazakhstan’s reputation as a place to do business and frustrating the consortium led by Royal Dutch Shell which is developing Karachaganak, one of Kazakhstan’s most high-profile energy projects.
A resolution to the dispute had been announced in October last year, although it now appears to have fallen through.
Media quoted Kazakhstan’s first deputy energy minister Makhambet Dosmukhambetov saying that the government wasn’t happy with the $1.1b offer. He didn’t elaborate as to why the government had pulled back from accepting the payment but he did hint that more negotiations were needed to find a solution to the row.
“New circumstances have been uncovered,” he said.
None of the partners developing Karachaganak — Shell, Lukoil, Chevron and Kazmunaigas — have commented.
Kazakhstan originally filed a $1.6b claim against the consortium developing the Karachaganak consortium in 2015 because it said that it hadn’t been receiving a fair share of the profits.
Over the past few years, Kazakhstan has been trying to gain bigger stakes in energy projects that have been dominated by foreign companies. It has said that when many of the deals were made to develop gas and oil fields in the chaotic post-Soviet 1990s, the Kazakh government was in an unfairly weak position.
Karachaganak, near Aktobe in the north of Kazakhstan, is one of the country’s most important oil and gas projects. It generates around 50% of Kazakhstan’s gas and 18% of the country’s oil.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.