Category Archives: Uncategorised

Armenia signs clear stream deal

JULY 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Central Depository of Armenia, the stock exchange’s securities market unit, signed a deal with debt trading house Clearstream, which is based in Luxembourg but is owned by the German Stock Exchange, which it said would boost transparency and reliability in the Armenian bond market. Clearstream made a similar agreement with Georgia in January. Armenia has become Clearstream’s 56th international partnership.

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(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Kazakh bank still suffers from Global Financial Crisis

JULY 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s Halyk Bank is still suffering from the impact of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, ratings agency Standard & Poor’s said as it downgraded the bank’s outlook because it had not been able to reduce the proportion of toxic assets in its loan portfolio. In the first six months of 2016, overdue loans grew to 11.7% of the bank’s total portfolio, up from 9.2% at the end of 2015. Halyk Bank is the second-largest bank in Kazakhstan. President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s daughter Dinara and her husband Timur Kulibayev own Halyk Bank.

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(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Tajikistan’s Rogun dam start surprises people

DUSHANBE, JULY 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The revival of the Rogun hydropower project, for which Tajikistan awarded a $3.9b tender last week, surprised both analysts and people living in Dushanbe.

Most had assumed that the project first dreamt up under the Soviet Union had been mothballed. There had been no major break- through on the project for the past few years and the middle of an economic downturn is no time to start a major infrastructure project.

Still, it appears Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon had other ideas. Now, Italy’s Salini Impregilo, the construction company that won the tender, says it will complete the dam, set to be the world’s tallest, and the first two power stations by 2018.

Manu, a 28-year-old student in Dushanbe, summed up many Dushanbe-residents’ thoughts when he said that he had believed that the dam would never be built.

“I thought we would not build Rogun any time soon,” he told the Bulletin’s Tajikistan correspondent. “It all happened unexpectedly but I am excited.”

If Rogun is successfully completed it will double Tajikistan’s power production and turn it into a major regional electricity exporter.

Analysts, though, were sceptical about the aggressive timeline that Salini Impregilo has set.

Filippo Menga, researcher at the University of Manchester who has studied Tajikistan’s hydropower, told the Bulletin that large dams are never built on time.

“There is still uncertainty on who is going to fund the Rogun dam, delays are clearly foreseeable. The timeline is simply not realistic,” he said.

The Rogun dam project is cer- tainly ambitious and will change Tajikistan’s fortunes if it is success- fully completed. It will also leave a lasting legacy for the 63-year-old Mr Rakhmon who, if reports are to be believed, is already thinking about his succession strategies.

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(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Azerbaijan’s economy shrinks, recession looms

JULY 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s Statistics Committee said its GDP shrank by 3.4% in manat terms in the first half of 2016, compared to the same period last year, a reflection of the negative impact that sustained low oil prices have had on the country’s economy.

This confirms concern voiced by international economists and ratings agencies that the Azerbaijani economy was going to contract this year.

Data from the state Statistics Committee showed that Azerbaijan’s GDP shrank in the first quarter of the year and now, although the data is patchy, the statistics appear to suggest that the second quarter of the year also showed that Azerbaijan’s economy had shrunk.

Azerbaijan is particularly vulnerable to low oil prices. Roughly 40% of its GDP is directly derived from oil and gas revenues. The last time that Azerbaijan’s economy shrank was in 2011 when its oil and gas production slipped.

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(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Azerbaijan’s capital to host trilateral meet

JULY 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Iranian officials said that a trilateral meeting between Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan will take place in Baku next month. Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev will host talks with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on August 8. The countries have said they want to build a new format of regional cooperation, along a north-south corridor.

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(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Turkmenistan and Georgia establish airline

JULY 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan and Georgia signed a deal to establish a direct flight between Tbilisi and Ashgabat from September. If the deal is realised, this will be the first direct flight route between the two countries. Last year, state-owned Turkmenistan Airlines said it aimed to open a direct route to Tbilisi.

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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)

Armenia’s Ameriabank issues bonds

JULY 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Ameriabank, Armenia’s largest bank, said it issued $15m in bonds on Armenia’s stock exchange, ahead of a potential IPO. The bonds will mature in just over two years with a coupon of 6.75%. In January, Ameriabank said it was planning an IPO inLondon, after it received an investment of around $100m from international lenders.

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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)

Azerbaijan jails journalist

JULY 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Azerbaijan sentenced Fikret Faramazoglu, editor of theinvestgiative jam.az newspaper, to three months in jail for extortion. Jam.az reports on court cases involving government officials, with a focus on the national security department. Media lobby groups say the charges are false.

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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)

Kyrgyzstan’s debt hits $4b

JULY 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s ministry of finance said the country’s debt had hit $4b, a level that parliament set in 2014 as the country’s debt ceiling. Foreign debt accounts for $3.7b of this amount. China’s Exim Bank, the World Bank’s International Development Association and the Asian Development Bank are among Kyrgyzstan’s largest creditors. Kyrgyzstan’s debt/GDP ratio has now surpassed 60%, a level that local politicians have said is worrying.

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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)

EBRD funds Georgia’s fertiliser maker

JULY 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The EBRD said it is about to unlock a $155m loan to Georgia’s fertiliser producer Rustavi Azot. The loan will be part of a $175m funding programme to modernise its production line and reduce the factory’s emissions. RustaviAzot, located 25km south of Tbilisi, employs around 2,000 workers and has an output capacity of up to 220,000 tonnes of ammonia per year. In March, the plant faced closure for failing to pay its gas bill.

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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)