Category Archives: Uncategorised

GM Uzbekistan switches to Belarus

OCT. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – GM Uzbekistan said it has discontinued sales of its Ravon Matiz car model in Russia and shifted exports to Belarus. The company did not give a reason for the marketing decision. Uzbekistan and Belarus have improved trade ties. GM Uzbekistan, a joint venture between US-based GM (25%) and state-owned Uzavtoprom (75%), has had to grapple with a corruption scandal involving car sales to Russia in the past few months.

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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Bashneft looks for fuel in Kazakhstan

OCT. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russian oil company Bashneft said it will explore the possibility of buying into the petrol station market in Kazakhstan. Bashneft already operates in Kazakhstan, where it produces around 500,000 tonnes of petroleum products. Sales representative Kirill Kasterin said the company now wants to sell petrol under its own brand. Bashneft owns around 70 filling stations in Russia.

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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Turkmen cashpoints experience shortages

OCT. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen workers have been unable to access their salaries due to cash shortages at cashpoints across the Dashoguz province in northern Turkmenistan, the local service of RFE/RL reported. Teachers and other state workers who had not received salaries for months were notified that their back salaries had been paid into their bank accounts. Cash shortages, however, made funds inaccessible. News has been leaking out of Turkmenistan for months about cash shortages.

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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)f

Azerbaijan to initiate ties with the EU

SEPT. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s parliament voted to initiate a rapprochement with the EU, after relations were downgraded last year after the EU criticised Azerbaijan’s human rights record. The resolution follows an official visit by delegates from the EU parliament to Baku earlier in September. Azerbaijan quit the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly in Sept. 2015, after a row with the EU and the OSCE over restrictions on parliamentary election observers.

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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Georgian Borjomi enters Korea

OCT. 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Korean company ANK PS signed an agreement for exclusive sales rights for Borjomi, the famous Georgian water. Borjomi, which is one of Georgia’s most recognisable brands abroad, will enter the Korean market in November.

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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Georgia secures EU support for visa-free access

TBILISI, OCT. 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — EU member states agreed to relax visa requirements for Georgians, a major step towards Georgia’s stated aim of gaining visa-free travel to the EU’s Schengen Zone.

The agreement needs to be voted on by the European Parliament but it would allow Georgian citizens to travel to the EU for up to 90 days in any 180-day period.

“The Council takes the view that the entry into force of visa liberalisation for Georgia should be at the same time as the entry into force of the new ‘suspension mechanism’,” said the EU Council.

The suspension mechanism is a new tool that will be introduced to allow the EU to withdraw visa-free access quickly if members felt that it was being abused. The EU has said that this mechanism was necessary to give visa-free access to Ukraine, Turkey and Kosovo, as well as Georgia.

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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Korea to invest in food programme of Kyrgyzstan

OCT. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Korea International Cooperation Agency will send $4m to the United Nations World Food Programme to implement a three-year programme aimed at improving food security in four regions of Kyrgyzstan. The project will target the poorest areas of the Batken, Jalal-Abad, Osh and Naryn provinces in central and south Kyrgyzstan.

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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Uzbek President bans unscheduled police raids

OCT. 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s acting President and PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev banned unscheduled police raids on businesses, in a move to improve, at least on paper, Uzbekistan’s business climate.

According to the decree, from January 2017 only pre-approved checks, linked to criminal activity or financial misconduct, can be ordered. This should end police raids, which have been linked to corruption.

This move fits Mr Mirziyoyev’s drive to build a presidential look for himself.

For the past few weeks, he has toured all regions in Uzbekistan, meeting foreign leaders and appearing more approachable than his predecessor Islam Karimov who died at the beginning of September

Mr Mirziyoyev is expected to win a presidential election in December.

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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Azerbaijan signs missile deal with Russia

OCT. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan and Russia agreed to jointly produce tactical air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles, according to the AzeriDefense magazine. Representatives of KTRV, Russia’s Tactical Missiles Corporation, and Sharg, owned by Azerbaijan’s ministry of defence, signed the deal in Baku. Azerbaijan has been spending heavily on its weapon system in the last few years.

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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Comment: Regional economies begin to steady, writes Sorbello

OCT. 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Central Banks across Central Asia and the South Caucasus seem to have switched off their crisis mode, as inflation slows, oil prices pick up and remittances begin to regenerate.

Excited about the imminent re-start of the Kashagan offshore oil project, Kazakhstan is looking stronger, after months of uncertainty regarding its currency and its budget stability.

An important sign of the country’s recovering health was the rate cut by Kazakhstan’s Central Bank this week, which said that with inflation back into the 6 – 8% band that it was targeting and that monetary policy could be eased.

This decision has been in the Central Banker’s thinking over the past few weeks. That much is clear. Daniyar Akishev has been showing, for the first time, a more confident and determined tone.

And countries less impacted by oil prices, from Armenia to Kyrgyzstan, have also tried to boost their rather slow economic activity by lowering or keeping low interest rates in the past weeks.

All currencies from the region have been hit by a stronger US dollar over the past two years, and their depreciation led inevitably to a sharp increase in consumer prices.

Some — such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia — needed strong monetary interventions. Others, such as Tajikistan, Armenia and Uzbekistan stabilised at a comparatively faster pace.

Last month, Russia’s Central Bank said migrant worker remittances to Kyrgyzstan had increased by 21%, reflecting a higher migration rate. On the other hand remittances to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan fell because of a drop in the number of migrants. Perhaps this is the Eurasian Economic Union effect?

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are among the top remittance-dependent countries in the world.

As the ship seems steadier, however, countries across the region will have to cope with more domestic problems, chiefly in the banking sector and other private sectors hit hard by the economic downturn.

As shown this week with the bankruptcy of Bank Standard, Azerbaijan’s financial sector doesn’t seem to have fully recovered from the crisis. And in western Kazakhstan, where oil is the job creator, a month-long strike just ended with the workers obtaining higher salaries and the company winning state tenders. There is still work to do.

By Paolo Sorbello, Deputy editor, The Conway Bulletin

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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)