Category Archives: Uncategorised

Georgia sends first wool exports to Britain

TBILISI, JAN. 12 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia has started shipping wool to Britain, media reported, an important first step towards integrating its exports into the EU.

The Georgian Wool Company said it had exported 22 tonnes of wool to Britain in December and that it was preparing a second batch of 45 tonnes for export in January.

“Our British partners were satisfied with the first test shipment and placed an additional order,” Zaur Yuliev, a director at the Georgian Wool Company told Agenda.ge.

The deal is important to Georgia because it is the first animal product export to the EU. Georgia received permission to export wool to the EU a year ago and sees it as an important new market.

In July 2016 it signed an Association Agreement with the EU that was primarily aimed at helping it to export fruit, vegetable and other animal products to the EU. Georgian honey has been touted as a potentially major export.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)

Wine exports grow in Georgia

JAN. 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia exported 50m bottles of wine last year, media reported quoting the National Wine Agency, a 38% increase on 2015 exports. Russia bought more than half of Georgia’s wine exports, highlighting just how important it is as a market. The next biggest importers of Georgian wine were Ukraine and China. China doubled its imports of Georgian wine to 5m bottles.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)

Inflation slows in Kazakhstan

JAN. 4 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Annualised inflation in Kazakhstan slowed to 8.5% in 2016, down from 13.6% in 2015, the country’s statistics committee said. The slow- down will be a relief to the Central Bank as it will give it increased room to use its monetary policy levers to try and induce more economic activity. The government’s inflation target has been 6-8%.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)

Suspected arsonists torch Muslim cultural centre in Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge

TBILISI, JAN. 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian investigators travelled to Duisi, the largest village in Georgia’s predominantly Muslim Pankisi Gorge, to inspect a suspected arson that damaged a Culture House run by the Kakheti Regional Development Fund (KRDF) earlier this month.

KRDF members said that jerry cans with fuel and oil were found inside the building and that the fire was an arson attempt.

The fire, sources said, highlights increased tension in the Pankisi Gorge between reactionary Islamists and more liberal thinkers. The IS extremist group has successfully recruited men to join their forces in Syria from the Pankisi Gorge.

Iza Bekauri, spokesperson for KRDF said that the centre has previously been threatened.

“There have been threats that we should get out of the Gorge. They said our work here in this place is unacceptable and we should leave,” media quoted her as saying.

The KRDF is a government sponsored programme that aims to help refugees in the Pankisi Gorge integrate. These are mainly ethnic Chechens who escaped from fighting in Russia’s North Caucasus in the early 2000s.

As well as providing legal assistance to Chechen refugees, the the community centre promotes educational and recreational activities for both youths and women.

A KRDF employee who wanted to remain anonymous told The Conway Bulletin that some radical elements in the Pankisi Gorge were against women using the centre.

“They like our educational activities but they don’t like our cultural events, women engagement and Women Council’s work,” he said.

Levani, a local dentist, said that a lack of education was the problem.

“Some young men don’t like the idea of women being more independent. Chechens have been living there for long time and they love Georgia. The problem is Pankisi is a remote and isolated part of our country. The problem is not Islam, the problem is limited education”, he said.

The KRDF has said it will consider suspending its activities if the area is deemed unsafe.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)

Kazakhstan Caspian pipeline exports increase

JAN. 9 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Exports via the Caspian Pipeline, which pumps oil from western Kazakhstan, around the Caspian Sea to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, rose by 4% in 2016, data released by the pipeline’s owner the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) showed. CPC’s main client is the Tengiz field in Kazakhstan. CPC’s biggest shareholders are Russia with a 24% stake, Kazakhstan with a 20.75% stake and Chevron with a 15% stake.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)

Turkish police name Uzbek as nightclub attacker

JAN. 9 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Turkey named the suspected gunman who killed 39 people at a nightclub in Istanbul on New Years Eve as Abdulkadir Masharipov, an Uzbek national. They said that he had links with IS in Iraq and Syria and that he has been living in Turkey since 2011. The accusation once again pulls Central Asia into the spotlight over IS recruitment in the region.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)

Georgian court releases Saakashvili ally

JAN. 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Tbilisi released the city’s former mayor Gigi Ugulava from prison after reducing his sentence for embezzlement and corruption. Mr Ugulava had been an ally of former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili. His arrest and prosecution in 2013 brought criticism against the Georgian Dream government coalition, which won an election in 2012, that it was using the courts to settle vendettas.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)

HRW criticises Kazakhstan over Union closure

JAN. 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The New York-based Human Rights Watch criticised the imminent closure of Kazakhstan’s independent workers’ union, the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Kazakhstan, as a violation of the right to freedom of association. A court in Shymkent, south Kazakhstan, had ordered the Union’s closure because it had violated union registration rules. The Kazakh authorities are suspicious of trade unions. They blame them for stirring up an oil workers strike in 2011 that turned into a riot.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)

Kyrgyz security services start monitoring Facebook

JAN. 12 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s security services have started monitoring 45 people who have criticised President Almazbek Atambayev on Facebook, the Eurasianet website reported. Eurasianet said that it had seen a memo which the Kyrgyz National Security Committee had written to an MP outlining its plans to watch the people. Human rights groups have previously criticised Kyrgyzstan for clamping down on free speech.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)

Markets: Turkish lira, Georgian lari

JAN. 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Turkish lira has started the year looking like the sick man of Emerging Market currencies. It dropped to an all-time low of 3.89/$1 on Jan. 10 before pulling back slightly. It has lost 25% in the past year.

The triggers for this are global unease over the incoming US president, Donald Trump, a strong US dollar and Turkey’s own domestic issues hinged around the anti- Gulenist purges currently sweeping through business and government.

The lira is a fragile currency and for the currencies of Central Asia and the South Caucasus, this is a problem. After Russia, Turkey is one of the biggest drivers of regional growth. Istanbul is a natural hub for businesses in the region. Inherent weaknesses in the lira could pull down the rest of the region. And these currencies are already looking weak with the Georgian lari looking under particular pressure. Since December it has surfed around all- times lows of 2.66-2.77/$1.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)