APRIL 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s state-owned nuclear company Kazatomprom signed a deal with France’s Areva to strengthen their partnership, an agreement which they said would see them working together for another 20 years. The two companies have worked together since 1996 on their Katco JV.
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(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)
APRIL 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh Tenge continues its upword trajectory this year and is now threatening to break through the psychologically important 310/$1 barrier.
It last breached this level at the beginning of December 2015, during the second devaluation of the year. After 310/$1 barrier is broken, analysts are confident that with oil pushing past $55/Barrel and the macro-economic picture improving, that it is only a matter of time before the next important level of 300 tenge/$1 is also breached.
It barely registered in October 2015 when the tenge fell past this level. Overnight on Oct. 10/11 2015, the tenge fell from 280/$1 to 307.5/$1. It kept falling in value as oil prices fell and by Jan. 22 2016 was valued at 381/$1. Since then, oil has improved from under $30/barrel, helping the economy to heal and pushing the value of the tenge up by 18.3% to 311.9/$1.
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(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)
APRIL 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan, currently a non- permanent member of the UN Security Council, and the host of talks on the Syrian civil war attended by Russia, Iran, Turkey and various Syrian factions called for an independent investigation into allegations that Syrian forces dropped chemical bombs onto a town in the south of the country at the start of the month. Syria, backed by its ally Russia, has denied the accusations.
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(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)
APRIL 4 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — State-owned Uzbekneftegaz plans a $400m expansion of its Shurtan Gas Chemical Complex in the south of the country, media reported by quoting officials from the plant. The plant is one of the biggest employers in the region and its expansion mirrors President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s call to boost industry and create more jobs. Media reports said that the expansion plan aims to boost output to 200,000 tonnes of polyethylene, a plastic, up from 75,000 tonnes currently.
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(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)
APRIL 4 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Aberdeen-based oil and gas services company EnerMech said that it had won contracts worth £40m ($50m) in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea to manage BP’s crane operations. John Guy, EnerMech’s regional director for the Middle East, Asia and Caspian, said that the company employs 300 people in the region and sees Azerbaijan as an important, and growing, part of its business.
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(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)
APRIL 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — This week’s ‘March of the Penguins’ should be saluted. Nineteen penguins have been flown from Bristol in southwest England
Nineteen penguins have been flown from Bristol in southwest England to Tbilisi where they are being rehomed in order to build a new penguin population. A flood destroyed the zoo in 2015, killing half its animals including the penguins.
Other zoos around Europe have also been donating animals, Riga sent a tiger, bringing the Tbilisi Zoo’s animal population back up to strength.
It has been a regeneration programme that perhaps even Noah, with his ark, would be proud of. Less than two years ago, images flashed around the world of tigers drowned in mud, bears being shot by the security services and a hippo standing knee-deep in water in a central Tbilisi street.
Now the hippo called Begi, the focus of an elaborate rescue operation in 2015, is back in the zoo and visitors are able to see for themselves one of the world’s most famous animals.
The flash flood on June 14 2015 killed half the zoo’s animals. Tigers and exotic birds were drown in their cages; the security forces tracked and shot dead dozens of escaped animals. In total 300 animals died. The flood also killed 20 people, including one by an escaped tiger four days after the flood.
Tbilisi Zoo’s existence hasn’t been easy. Opened in 1927, at its peak in the 1970s the zoo housed 1,000 different species. In the 1990s, though, funds for the zoo dried up and visitor numbers collapsed. This was the difficult and impoverished post-Soviet era when the newly independent countries were more bankrupt than solvent. A report by the World Society for the Protection of Animals in 1993 said that half the animals had died of starvation of the cold in the previous two years.
Now, though, Tbilisi zoo has been patched together and plans to relocate out of the city are being considered once again. Its future looks brighter than ever.
This is the zoo which has survived starvation after the break up of the Soviet Union and risen from the mud and horror of the 2015 flash flood.
By James Kilner, The Editor, The Conway Bulletin
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(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)
APRIL 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an interview with the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Tajik interior ministry spokesman said that interior minister, Ramazon Rahminzoda, had ordered policemen to go to the theatre at least once a month. He said that the theatre could inspire, challenge and educate policemen. Tajik police have a reputation for being corrupt.
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(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)
APRIL 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — >> I heat that Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev wants to switch the alphabet that the Kazakh language uses to Latin from Cyrillic. Why is that? Is this part of his drive towards the West?
>> What drive towards the West? You can hardly accuse Nazarbayev of trying to cosy up to the West at the detriment of relations with Russia and China. Some media have indeed reported that this push to switch Kazakh to Latin alphabet by 2025 is part of a plot by Nazarbayev to become more Western. I don’t think that this is case, though.
>> So why make this big change?
>> It is a big change, that’s for sure, but it’s been talked about for years. Turkic languages also flow more naturally using the Latin alphabet. Cyrillic was forced on Kazakhstan by the Soviets. Kazakh was originally mainly an oral language spoken by the nomadic tribes of the steppe but as the people became more settled it adopted organised alphabets and scripts. This was, first, Arabic script when Islam was introduced into Central Asia during the time the region was the centre of the Silk Road. By the 19th century, the written form of Kazakh had grown in popularity, thanks mainly to the national poet Abai Qunanbaiuli, considered the father of the modern Kazakh language. He wrote in Arabic script. It was under the Soviet Union, though, with its sweeping collectivisation, that Kazakh was forced to adopt the Cyrillic alphabet.
>> Okay but if Nazarbayev isn’t trying to court the West with this move, why has he made it?
>> Latin has already been adopted by most other Turkic languages, including Turkish, Turkmen and Uzbek. Kyrgyz still uses Cyrillic. The switch to a Latin script makes sense for the Kazakh language in terms of ease of use and also matching up with the other main Turkic languages. It is not a geopolitical plot to move closer to the West.
>> What do ordinary Kazakhs think about the proposed switch to the Latin Alphabet?
>> Generally, they are positive about it. Kazakh has become more prevalent over the past 15 years or so. At the turn of the millennium, Russian was dominant in Almaty, now Kazakh is. By aligning Kazakh with other Turkic languages, Nazarbayev will be playing to this domestic audience.
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(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)
APRIL 11 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — MPs in Kazakhstan have received a pay rise of 50%, media reported. According to the Eurasianet website, the pay rise has angered many ordinary Kazakhs who are struggling through a sharp economic downturn. MPs have responded that the pay rise was organised four year ago and that they were the last group of government officials to receive a pay rise. The pay rise, active since March 1, means that MPs in Kazakhstan now earn $2,000 to $2,200 every month.
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(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)
ALMATY, APRIL 5 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A senior official at Samruk Kazyna, Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund, said that the up-and-coming privatisations of Air Astana, the national airline, and Kazatomprom, the state nuclear company, were attracting a lot of attention from Western investors.
In an interview with Reuters in London, Berik Beisengaliyev, managing director for assets optimisation of Samruk Kazyna, also said that the Kazakh government had sold off 120 small and medium sized companies. Samruk Kazyna is Kazakhstan’s $67b sovereign wealth fund.
“We saw a very positive mood in the market,” he was quoted as saying. Kazakhstan has been promising the so-called People’s IPO that would see chunks of the country’s biggest companies listed on both the Kazakh Stock Exchange and an international exchange. It has continually delayed the IPOs, mainly because market conditions have moved against sales.
Still, Mr Beisengaliyev said that the sale of the smaller companies would be complete by the end of 2018 allowing the government to sell off what have been considered its top tier assets.
As well as Air Astana, which is 49% owned by BAE Systems, and Kazatomprom, the world’s biggest uranium producer, the more high profile companies slated to be sold off, or at least be partially privatised, include Kazpost, oil and gas company Kazmunaigas and railway operator Temir Zholy.
A third tier of companies are being considered for sale to strategic investors, single high-profile companies instead of the multiple smaller investors attracted through an IPO, Mr Beisengaliyev said. These companies include domestic airline Qazqom, Kazakhtelecom and mining company Teu-Ken Sumruk.
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(News report from Issue No. 324, published on April 13 2017)