Category Archives: Uncategorised

Kazakhs look for public sector jobs as business cuts staff to see off econ downturn

ALMATY, OCT. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Official statistics showed that there are now more people working in Kazakhstan’s state sector than in private business, a reflection of how the economic downturn has cut into the job market.

The State Statistics Committee said that 51% of the total labour force in Kazakhstan now worked in the public sector, up from 46% in 2014 and 47% in 2015.

The jump in the proportion of the labour force working in the public sector, though, is only partially driven by an rise in state sector jobs.

The main driver has been a cut in the number of jobs in private enterprise.

Accurate data on these job losses is patchy but anecdotally there are many stories of cuts.

Madina Kuan quit her job at a media firm to look for a better one.

“I thought it would be easy to find a new one but I’ve now been jobless for six months,” she said. “My brother, as well, works in the oil sector in west of Kazakhstan and his company doesn’t have a job for him. They did not fire him though but instead just asked him to wait until things improve.”

A sharp fall in oil prices and a recession in Russia triggered a collapse in Kazakhstan’s currency. Despite fighting talk from the government, inflation has grown and businesses have been cutting staff.

The finprom.kz website has reported that the number of people employed by Kazakh private businesses has shrunk but that the public sector has increased the number of hires.

Kuralay Orazgeldy, who used to work in Almaty’s department of budget planning said people were attracted to public sector jobs because of the stability.

“Turnover is very high, staff changes often,” she said. “The salary is stable, everything is paid on time and often workers are rewarded but I can’t say that salary equals to the volume of work.”

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(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Uzbekistan unites economic zones

OCT. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s three special economic zones will be ruled under a single, unified legal and tax regime, a presidential decree said. Uzbekistan’s government is trying to improve its business climate and this involves providing more transparent and consistent rules for special economic zones in Navoi, Angren and Jizzakh. It sees the SEZs as critical for attracting foreign investment. Korean Air has a transport hub, for example, at the Navoi SEZ.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Tethys deal with Kazakhstan’s Oilsol collapses

ALMATY, OCT. 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Guernsey-based oil company Tethys Petroleum said Kazakhstan-based investment group Olisol had failed to pay a final 9.8m Canadian dollars ($7.3m) instalment that it had promised in return for a stake in the company.

Olisol had been viewed as saviour by Tethys, which had been short of cash because of the collapse in oil prices since 2014 which has destroyed profits at energy companies, but failing to pay up on time effectively crushes the deal.

In a harsh statement, Tethys complained that despite its readiness to move forward, Olisol missed the payment deadline, jeopardising the deal.

“Olisol failed to provide Tethys with any of the C$9.8 million purchase price required to purchase the subscription shares under the Investment Agreement,” the company said, referring to the agreement the parties had signed in December 2015 and updated in April.

“Therefore, Tethys considers Olisol to be in breach of the Investment Agreement and reserves all of its legal rights.”

Tethys also said that Olisol also claimed to be entitled to a full refund of the $5.7m it had already invested in the company, because of mutated conditions.

Olisol could not be reached for a comment.

After a takeover offer from London-listed Nostrum Oil & Gas fell through in the summer of 2015, Tethys had placed all its hopes on Olisol, and its mystery backers, to inject enough money to settle its debts.

The battle for survival in Kazakhstan has become increasingly tough for Tethys, which is also involved in legal battles with its partners in Tajikistan, its other main focus in Central Asia.

Days before it announced that its deal with Olisol had fallen through, Tethys said that it had received a notice from Eurasia Gas Group, a local company which had worked with a Tethys subsidiary in Kazakhstan since 2012. Eurasia Gas said that it was suing Tethys Aral Gas for $2.6m for failing to deliver oil supplies.

This is part of a bigger row. Last month, Tethys Aral Gas had threatened to sue Eurasia Gas for $1.3m in unpaid oil supplies.

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(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Turkmenistan sells cheap gas to China

OCT. 31 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan sold 23b cubic metres of gas to China in the first nine months of 2016 at a price of $185/1,000 cubic metres, according to official statistics published by China’s Border Administration. Supplies from Turkmenistan to China increased by 13% in the considered period, but Turkmenistan is the cheapest gas that China imports. The price that China pays is tied to loans and grants it sent to Turkmenistan over the years to develop its giant gas fields in the south of the country.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Kazakhstan receives loan from EBD

NOV. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakhstan/Russia-led Eurasian Development Bank sent a 7.7b tenge ($23m) loan to KazTransGas- Aimak, the largest gas distributor in Kazakhstan, to upgrade the network in the northern Aktobe region. One of the key objectives of the overhaul is to expand the network to isolated villages that are cut off from the grid.

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(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Georgian capital hotel boom given another lift as Hilton prepares to open

TBILISI, NOV. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — US-based hotel chain Hilton will finally open a new $31m four-star hotel in Tbilisi next year, its first in the Georgian capital, adding much-needed extra bedrooms in Georgia where both tourist and business visits are rising steadily.

The 14-storey Hilton Garden Inn hotel, which will open a few months behind schedule, will hold 165 rooms and be situated towards the western end of Tbilisi, an area which has become a hub for Georgia’s professional businesses and for many Western companies working in the country.

Hilton, which already owns a hotel in Georgia’s Black Sea coast of Batumi and in Baku and Yerevan, had announced in 2013 that it was to build the hotel which it had aimed to open by the end of 2016.

And the Hilton hotel is just the latest to be built in Tbilisi, which has been notoriously short of bedrooms for years but is experiencing something of a hotel building boom.

The National Agency for State Property this week also sold an ornate 100-year-old post office building in the centre of Tbilisi to Nevada, a local real estate company, for 5.7m lari ($2.4m). Nevada plans to convert the building into a 30-bedroom boutique hotel within 3-1/2 years.

Tourism in Georgia is on the rise. Georgia is positioning itself as an affordable summer and winter destination for people living in the former Soviet Union, and you are now as likely to see upwardly mobile young Kazakhs in Batumi as you are in any resort around the Black Sea. Improved ties with Russia have also triggered a rise in visitor numbers, as has relative stability in Iran and Iraq. Revenues from tourism grew to $2b last year, an 8.3% increase compared to 2014.

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(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Stock market: Roxi Petroleum

NOV. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — On a mild slide since mid-August, Roxi Petroleum’s stock price received a bump after the company published encouraging results for its new oil wells on Oct. 28.

The London-based company, which operates the BNG Contract Area in western Kazakhstan near Tengiz, said it has almost completed the initial drilling operations at its new Deep Well 6.

The news, technical in nature, was accompanied by a high volume of trading on the stock market, sending Roxi to 10.5p, a 9% jump on the day of the announcement.

The company now needs to assess the commercial feasibility of the field at different depths. Clive Carver, the company’s chairman, said that the preliminary results at Deep Well 6 were even more encouraging than Roxi’s previously drilled deep wells.

A trio of high-ranking Kazakhs owns Roxi.

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(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Armenian President to see out term

NOV. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armen Gevorgyan, chief of the presidential staff in Armenia, said that, despite the country’s prospective transition from a presidential to a parliamentary democracy, President Serzh Sargsyan will continue to rule until his term, his second and final one, ends in 2018. Last December, a referendum approved the switch in the country’s form of government. Next year, Armenians will vote in parliamentary elections with a new electoral law. In the Central Asia/South Caucasus region, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan have switched to parliamentary systems of government.

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(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Kazakhstan’s Air Astana expands

NOV. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s flagship carrier Air Astana said it plans to buy 13 new aircrafts due to growing demand. Air Astana will make an offer to buy 11 Airbus and two Boeing planes over the next four years. British BAE Systems owns 49% of Air Astana, while Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna owns the rest.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Inflation rises in Kazakhstan

NOV. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s Statistics Committee said inflation had risen by 0.6% in October, pushing up prices that had stabilised in previous months. Since the beginning of the year, prices have risen an average of 6.2%. The Central Bank has said that it wants to contain inflation between 6% and 8%. Last year, inflation in Kazakhstan reached double digits.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)