JULY 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s state-owned aluminium smelter TALCO said it produced 73,100 tonnes of aluminium in H1 2016, a 13% increase over the same period last year. Low commodity prices, though, meant it sold aluminium at a price range of $1,400-$1,600/tonne. Production costs have reached $2,000/tonne.
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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)
JULY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s customs agency said that the country imported around 1,300 cars in H1 2016, a drop of 80% compared to the same period last year. Earlier reports said that car imports in Kyrgyzstan have also dropped in H1 2016. Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are two of the most remittance-dependent countries in the world and their economies have been hit hard by a recession in Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)
JULY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s Statistics Committee said that trade turnover increased by 2.7% in H1 2016, compared to the same period last year, pushed up by a boost in exports. Exports grew by 16.7% to $815m, while imports decreased by 3.7% to $1.46b. A weak dram has made Armenian goods cheaper for exports.
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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)
JULY 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR said that it had resumed operations at an oil platform badly damaged by a storm and a fire in December. SOCAR said that work at one of the 28 oil wells operated by Platform No. 10 in the shallow-water Guneshli field had restarted. 31 oil workers died in the storm on Dec. 11, the worst offshore accident at an oil platform for nearly 30 years.
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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)
JULY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan could soon join the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union, Abdufattoh Goib, head of the Border Service, told local media. Mr Goib said the government had instructed officials to join EEU working groups to study access requirements. Earlier this month, Leonid Slutsky, chairman of CIS affairs at the Russian Duma, said that Tajikistan might join next year.
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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)
BISHKEK, JULY 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Looking to woo investors from China and to boost stagnant domestic industries, Kyrgyzstan made a direct plea last month to Chinese businesses to buy into 43 different factories.
The problem is that, seven weeks on, none seem particularly interested. In an interview with The Conway Bulletin, Alkhanbek Imanaliyev, the CEO of Bishkek-based knit-wear company Ilbirs, blamed a fall in Kyrgyzstan’s image as a place to do business for the lack of interest. He hasn’t had a single visit from a Chinese company looking to invest in Kyrgyzstan.
“We welcome any investors as long as they don’t change the profile of the factory and retain local people as employees,” he said. “But raids and scandals around the Kumtor gold mining company intimidate them.”
Chinese investment has become a mainstay of business and infrastructure projects in Central Asia. China has openly looked to curry political favour through its investments.
But it hasn’t all been smooth.
Chinese companies generally prefer to import labour from China, raising tension with local workers. This has lead to fights, especially in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Over the past couple of years, groups of Kyrgyz locals have even raided foreign-owned business on horseback to settle disputes and to intimidate. This year, also, the Kyrgyz tax authorities raided a refinery owned by a Chinese company arrested the Chinese deputy director.
On the Kumtor Gold mine, the Kyrgyz government is locked in a protracted row with Toronto-listed Centerra Gold over its ownership.
All this appears to have undermined Chinese investors’ confidence, a major problem for Kyrgyzstan which is looking to boost investment.
Not everybody in Kyrgyzstan, though, was even happy about the initial offer made to Chinese investors. At the Soviet-era lamp factory in Maily-Suu, in west Kyrgyzstan, workers worry they could lose their jobs if the company is taken over.
“This factory ensures jobs for 2,700 people, which is roughly 12% of Maily-Suu town population,” Avazkan Arzykulova, head of the labour union at the factory, told The Bulletin. She has written to the Kyrgyz government asking them to block any sale to a Chinese company.
For now, though, it doesn’t appear as if Ms Arzykulova and her colleagues don’t have anything to worry about.
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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)
ALMATY, JULY 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A lone gunman killed five people in Almaty, sparking a rare terror alert in Kazakhstan’s financial centre.
Initially Kazakh officials drew a link between the gunman, Ruslan Kulikbaev, who shot dead four policemen and a passerby and Salafism, a devout Arabic form of Islam blamed for terror attacks, suggesting that he had become radicalised while in prison for an earlier crime.
This triggered a red terrorism alert in Almaty. Shops closed; people stayed inside.
But before the day was out, officials changed their story and reported that Kulikbaev was a lone gunman with criminal rather than religious intentions who had killed a prostitute the day before his Almaty rampage. He was later captured alive.
For analysts critical of the government, officials’ quick use of the terrorism label, underlined their knee-jerk reaction to play the security card to bolster President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s popularity.
Others, though, were more sanguine.
This year Kazakhstan has warned about a growth in attacks linked to the IS radical group which has targeted Central Asia as a prime recruiting ground and Aidos Sarym, an Almaty-based analyst, said Monday’s terror alert would damage the country’s reputation for stability.
“It’s definitely terrorism and it may damage Kazakhstan’s stability and security image prior to EXPO 2017 (in Astana),” he said
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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)
JULY 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tengizchevroil (TCO), the Chevron- led consortium exploiting the Tengiz oilfield in western Kazakhstan, issued a $1b 10-year Eurobond with a 4% coupon, lower than previously forecast, RIA Novosti said. Earlier in July, TCO approved a $37b expansion plan, which will boost production at Tengiz by 45% by 2020.
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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)
JULY 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s ministry of economy proposed slashing taxation on dividends in the draft of the country’s new tax code, official media reported. Armenia’s parliament approved the new tax code at a first reading on June 15. Artsvik Minasyan, minister of economy, said that scrapping dividend tax will lure more foreign investment to the country.
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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)
JULY 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s car production shrank by 62.2% to 2,980 units in H1 2016, compared to the same period last year, according to the Statistics Committee. This fall in car sales is an important indicator of the health of the economy and people’s expectations as to where it is heading.
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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)