Author Archives: Editor

US government fund to invest in Georgian port

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FEB. 6 (The Conway Bulletin) — OPIC, the US-government’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation, will invest $50m into the $120m construction of a new port terminal at Poti on Georgia’s Black Sea coast, media reported. At a press conference, Georgian PM Mamuka Bakhtadze said the new port was vital to Georgia in maintaining its key position as an entry point for goods transiting between Europe and Asia. OPIC’s mission is to help US businesses expand overseas and also to push US foreign policy objectives.
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>This story was first published in issue 399 of The Conway Bulletin on Feb. 8 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019

Turkmenistan to start building trans-country motorway

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JAN. 26 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan started work on construction of a $2.3 four-lane motorway that will run across the sandy Kara Kum desert and connect Ashgabat with Uzbekistan.

Serdar Berdymukhamedov, the son of President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and widely regarded as his heir, launched the construction, highlighting its prominence. The project is seen as a continuation of Turkmenistan’s government policy to try to kickstart its economy through a combination of spending cuts on services and prestige infrastructure projects which aim to generate thousands of jobs and additional revenue.

Turkmen officials have said that the road, the biggest ever built in Turkmenistan, will also build up its position as a prominent stage-post for trade routes running across Central Asia.

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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019

KAZ Minerals reports higher production

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JAN. 24 (The Conway Bulletin) — KAZ Minerals, the Kazakhstan-focused London-listed copper producer, announced results that showed production that was 294 kilotons of copper, 17% higher in 2018 than in 2017, pushing up its share price. The production figure was at the top end of guidance previously given by the company.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan hold interest rates

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JAN. 28/30 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan’s Central Banks kept their interest rates steady because of low inflation. Falling prices have been a feature of the economies of the region since they recovered from an economic downturn in 2014-17. Kazakhstan’s interest rate is currently 9.25% and Uzbekistan’s lies at 16%.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019

Uzbekistan to privatise state gold producer

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JAN. 22 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a decree that should lead to the privatisation of the country’s main gold producer the Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Company (NMMC). The decree said that NMMC should be privatised by December 2019. NMMC and Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Company (AMMC) produce an estimated 80% of Uzbekistan’s gold.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019

Georgians think country is moving in wrong direction

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JAN. 28 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a poll conducted in December 2018 for the US’ National Democratic Institute (NDI), 38% of Georgians said that the country was moving in the wrong direction, compared to 29% of Georgians who said it was moving in the right direction. These proportions have remained fairly consistent since June 2017.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019

Woman charged over anti-China demonstrations

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JAN. 23 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Kyrgyz woman has become the first person to be charged with a crime linked to anti-Chinese demonstrations that have grown in size in Bishkek over the past month. Radio Free Europe reported that Guljamila Saparalieva had been charged with inciting racial hatred. She was one of a dozen protesters who had gathered in Bishkek on Jan. 17 to protest against the growing number of Chinese migrants working in the country and also about China’s anti-Muslim policies in its northwest region. China is a key economic partner for Kyrgyzstan.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019

US imposes sanctions on Yerevan travel company for working with Iran

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YEREVAN/Jan. 24 (The Conway Bulletin) — The United States imposed sanctions on an Armenian company for the first time over its dealings with an Iranian airline that Washington said flies units of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards in and out of a civil war in Syria.

In a statement, the US Treasury Department said Yerevan-based Flight Travel was the third company to be sanctioned for working with Iran’s Mahan Air and that any assets linked to it or its executives in the US will be frozen. Last year it also sanctioned a company in Malaysia and another in Thailand.

“The designation of Flight Travel LLC demonstrates the US Government’s commitment to denying foreign support for Mahan Air and other designated Iranian airlines, and reinforces multiple warnings to the aviation community of the sanctions risk for individuals and entities maintaining commercial relationships with these airlines,” it said.

The US Treasury Department said Flight Travel provides ticketing, financial and administrative services to Mahan Air, which flies to Yerevan as well as to other cities in the region, Europe and China.
In Yerevan, Bella Gevorgyan, named as Flight Travel’s director, said that she was frustrated.

“I think it is not right to impose sanctions against Armenian citizens working with its neighbour country,” she told the Aysor.am news website.

For Armenia’s instinctively Western-orientated government, the US sanctions on Iran, imposed last year, are a headache. Surrounded on two sides by its arch-enemies Turkey and Azerbaijan, Armenia is drawn into dealing with Iran, its far larger southern neighbour.
And over the past few years, Armenia and Iran have deepened ties. Iranians, tourists and businessmen, have also become far more conspicuous in Yerevan.

In October, when John Bolton, US President Donald Trump’s security adviser, travelled to Yerevan, Baku and Tbilisi to explain the impact of sanctions, Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan told him that his country would continue to deal with Iran and with Iranian companies.

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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019

Kyrgyzstan extends Kumtor agreement with Centerra Gold

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JAN. 29 (The Conway Bulletin) — Centerra Gold, the Toronto-listed company that owns the Kumtor mine in Kyrgyzstan, said that the Kyrgyz government had asked it to extend an agreement first hammered out in September 2017 by four months to the end of May 2019. The agreement essentially secures Centerra Gold’s ownership over the mine. Kumtor has been the focus of a long-running row between Centerra and Kyrgyzstan, which is a shareholder in Centerra. Last year, a rival AIM-listed British gold company also put forward a bid for Kumtor.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019

Pashinyan says he wants an “economic revolution”

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JAN. 23 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an interview with Euronews, Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan said that it was now time to turn the country’s political revolution into an economic revolution. He said that he wanted his government to reduce tax for small and medium sized businesses, streamline regulation and attract foreign investment.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019