Category Archives: Uncategorised

Georgian Shilda to export 5m bottles of wine

JAN. 12 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Shilda Wines, owned by former Georgian economy minister Vano Chkhartishvili MP, has made a deal to export 5m bottles of wine to China over the next three years. The deal is the largest ever struck by a wine producer with China. It highlights how important China has become to the Georgian wine market. China is the third biggest Georgian wine importer after Russia and Ukraine.

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

High demand triggers Georgian airport expansion

JAN. 9 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In 2016, 1.8m people used Tbilisi international airport, media reported, more than double the people volume in 2010. The high usage has triggered an expansion scheme. A new arrival terminal will be able to process 3.25m people every year, officials said. The airport is operated by Turkey-based TAV Airports Holding. Georgia has invested millions into boosting tourist numbers, marketing itself as both a seaside destination with its resorts on the Black Sea coast and also as a winter sports hub. Iranians and Iraqis have also been travelling to Georgia to set up businesses.

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

Kazakh Central Bank keeps rates steady

JAN. 9 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s Central Bank held its key interest rate as 12% at its first monetary session of 2017 but hinted that cuts would come later in the year to boost economic activity. The challenge for the Kazakh Central Bank is to boost economic activity without undermining confidence in its tenge currency.

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

Armenia wants Turkmen gas via Iran

JAN. 9 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenian PM Karen Karapetyan said he wanted to boost trilateral ties with Iran and Turkmenistan to potentially import Turkmen gas via Iran. Armenia has developed relations with Iran over the past few years. Iran and Turkmenistan are yet to respond to Mr Karapetyan’s proposal.

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

Visa-free travel nears for Georgians

JAN. 12 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The European Parliament’s civil liberties committee voted to approve visa-free travel for Georgia and Ukraine, setting the stage for a full parliamentary vote on the issue in February or March. The civil liberties committee is considered a powerful sounding- board and analysts said that it was likely that the European Parliament would approve the motion and that Georgians will be able to travel without a visa to the Schengen zone from April or May.

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

China embassy attackers in Kyrgyzstan hide in Turkey

JAN. 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The suspects behind the attack on the Chinese embassy in Bishkek last year are in hiding in Istanbul, Kyrgyz media quoted Kyrgyzstan’s ambassador to Turkey as saying. A car bomb killed two people working at the embassy on Aug. 30 2016. The authorities have blamed Uighurs from China’s western Xinjiang Province. Turkey has not commented.

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

Turkmenistan looks to boost oil output

JAN. 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan wants to attract foreign investors to help develop its North Goturdepe oil field in the Caspian Sea, media reported. The field was discovered in 2010 and has been developed by Turkmenistan. It currently produces around 68,000 barrels/day. It wants to double production.

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

Data shows Kyrgyz trade with EEU has fallen

BISHKEK, JAN. 11 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s trade with other members of the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) fell 18.6% in the first 10 months of 2016, the Russian news website gazeta.ru quoted an unnamed source at the Kyrgyz statistics committee as saying.

This data, if confirmed when the official statistics are released, highlights Kyrgyz officials’ concerns that joining the EEU has had a negative impact on its trade. They have said that the EEU favours the larger countries and has hampered Kyrgyzstan’s trade with China.

“In the first 10 months of 2016, trade turnover, the import-exports of Kyrgyzstan, with the EEU member states comprised of $1.575b,” the unnamed source said. “Compared to the same period in 2015, this figure was 81.4%, in other words it was a drop of 18.6%.”

The data also goes against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s insistence that Kyrgyzstan’s trade turnover has increased since it joined the EEU.

Last month in a very public show of his frustration with the EEU, Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev delayed signing a key customs agreement between the five member states at a ceremony in St Petersburg.

Kyrgyzstan joined the EEU in August 2015 but its businessmen and MPs have complained of excessive bureaucracy and barriers to trading with China that the EEU has imposed.

Many analysts said Kyrgyzstan had been coerced into joining the EEU.

The other EEU member states are Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia.

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

A new mayor of Tajik Capital

JAN. 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — >> I read on page 6 that Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon has made his son the mayor of Dushanbe. Why has he done this?

>> Essentially it looks as if this is a continuation of a process that has been happening for some time. Rakhmon, who has been in power since the mid 1990s, is thinking about succession and this means handing over power to his son, Rustam Emomali. Last year, Pres. Rakhmon forced through changes to Tajikistan’s constitution that should make it easier for his son to take over. A pliant parliament voted to approve changes which mean that both Rakhmon and his son will be eligible to run in a 2020 election.

>> How is the rule on presidential candidates being over 35-years-old important?

>> Put simply, it looks as if Rakhmon is hedging his bets with these constitutional changes. Rakhmon will be 68-years-old when the next presidential election comes along in Tajikistan, probably in November 2020. He may not be in the best health then and may want to give up governing. If he does, dropping the 35- year-old minimum age rule allows his son, Rustam, to stand. Rustam will be 32-years-old in Nov. 2020.

>> And the mayoral position in Dushanbe?

>> This is an important position in Tajikistan. All the country’s wealth is situated in Dushanbe. Apartment prices on Rudaki, the main avenue running through Dushanbe, are among the most expensive in the region. Rustam Emomali will also be given a sizeable budget to manage, with all its challenges and pitfalls. This is like- for-like training for the top job.

>> What has Rustam Emomali done before this?

>> He’s had a few serious jobs in Tajikistan. He has previously been the head of the country’s customs service and its main anti-corruption agency, the Agency for State Financial Control. Rustam Emomali also has an international profile as he is head of Tajikistan’s football federation. A keen footballer, he used to play centre forward for one of Tajikistan’ s top football clubs.

>> How have international organisations reacted to the promotion of Rustam Emomali as mayor of Dushanbe?

>> Predictably, many of the Western groups are frustrated. They have said for a while that Pres. Rakhmon is acting in an increasingly autocratic manner. Promoting his son to such an important position, to them, confirms this. It also builds on the feeling that Rakhmon is acting as a control freak. Tajikistan’s opposition have been hounded and imprisoned, news websites and social media are often shut down for spurious reasons. This said, security-conscious regional governments are far less likely to be bothered about the grooming of Rakhmon’s son to take over from him.

>> So, what next?

>> Keep a close eye on Rakhmon’s health and also how Rustam Emomali is perceived to perform as mayor of Dushanbe. It’s a position where, if he slips up, he can make enemies. And, the nearer the 2020 election get, the more attention you need to pay to just how Pres. Rakhmon and his son, Rustam, are positioning themselves. The opposition has been hollowed out so whatever they decide between themselves will fly.

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

An Azeri go-between emerges for Trump-Putin

JAN. 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A dossier produced by a former British spy detailing how Russian president Vladimir Putin had developed links with incoming US president Donald Trump has shocked the Washington political establishment.

The report, published online by the Buzzfeed news website on Jan. 10, also detailed how Russia has gathered enough evidence of Trump’s alleged bribery and sexual escapades that it was now able to blackmail him.

Trump has called the dossier a pack of lies but what is undeniable is the assertion in the dossier that Araz Agalarov, an ethnic Azerbaijani billionaire with strong links to both the Kremlin and to Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev, plays a key link role with Trump.

One memo sent by the British spy to his Washington client quoted sources in St Petersburg saying that Trump had visited the city, taken part in sex parties and paid bribes for real estate deals. The memo didn’t offer much in the way of direct evidence to corroborate these allegations, and it has to be repeated that Trump has denied everything.

On Agalarov, though, it did offer this aside: “The two St Petersburg figures cited believe an Azeri business figure Araz Agalarov (with offices in Baku and London) had been closely involved with Trump in Russia and would know most of the details of what the Republican candidate had got up to there.”

Agalarov has also been credited with bringing Trump’s Miss Universe contest to Moscow in 2013 and agreeing to build a Trump Tower.

In short, Agalarov has emerged as a key figure in the Trump-Putin story. Worth an estimated $1.3b, Agalarov splits his time between Moscow, London and Baku. His main business interest is the Russia-based Crocus, which started organising and hosting exhibitions in post-Soviet Moscow, before moving into real estate and owning shopping malls.

In many ways, the 62-year-old Agalarov is a good foil for Trump in the former Soviet Union. He can match Trump on bravado and business interests but cuts a more sophisticated figure.

He is friends with Putin and is also close to Azerbaijan’s president Aliyev. His musician son, Emin, was married to Aliyev’s daughter Leyla until their divorce in 2015. Agalarov and Aliyev, though, share two twin grandsons through the marriage.

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