Category Archives: Uncategorised

ADB says that Turkmenistan’s TAPI pipeline is ‘doable’

APRIL 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said it will support infrastructure projects in Turkmenistan, including the $10b TAPI gas pipeline and also rail and electricity links to neighbouring countries.

Over the next two years, the ADB plans to invest around $1b on construction of railway corridors and the production and supply of electricity.

On TAPI, the pipeline that should, if all goes to plan, pump Turkmen gas to India through Afghanistan and Pakistan by 2019, the ADB delivered a determined, positive endorsement.

“We’re going through some of the toughest territory in Afghanistan, so the challenge is there. There’s no doubt about it,” Sean O’Sullivan, director for Central Asia at the ADB, told Reuters the day after a $200m investment deal was signed for TAPI between its key shareholders — Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

“But I am sure it’s doable.”

The ADB has been a staunch defender of the TAPI pipeline, which many analysts have said is too complicated to pull off successfully, and advised the partners on the financing of the $10b project.

Previously, the ADB pulled funding from the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan railway link, because of security concerns. Now, by saying that TAPI is “doable”, Mr O’Sullivan is effectively giving the ADB’s endorsement to the project, despite ongoing doubts on security guarantees.

In the meantime, construction work continued on TAPI, with Turkmen officials triumphantly announced that they had finished welding the first kilometre of the pipeline.

The other countries have reportedly started construction work too.

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(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

Kazakh oil production to drop

APRIL 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – OPEC, a club of oil exporting countries, and the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Kazakhstan’s oil output will decline this year. OPEC said Kazakh production will slow by 3.2% to 1.55m barrels/day. The EIA, which uses different parameters in its calculations, said it would fall 1.2% to 1.71m barrels/day.

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(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

Kyrgyz PMs

APRIL 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Sooronbai Jeenbekov became Kyrgyzstan’s sixth PM since constitutional changes in 2010 handed more power to parliament. This is a record that denotes both instability and strength. Instability because of the sheer number of men to hold the post and strength because the system has survived throughout this turbulence.

Last year, when Djoomart Otorbayev resigned, after a heated row over the Kumtor gold mine, analysts thought that Temir Sariyev may become the first Kyrgyz PM to last the five year lifespan of a parliament.

But Mr Sariyev proved them wrong thanks to a classic case of Central Asia corruption and elite spat.

Now it’s Mr Jeenbekov’s turn. He is a loyalist to President Almazbek Atambayev and an influential figure in Osh, the southern powerhouse of the country.

Together with his brother Asylbek, formerly the speaker of the Parliament, Mr Jeenbekov could garner enough power to establish a strong vertical in Kyrgyzstan’s power structure.

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(Editorial from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

Georgia charges transit fee

APRIL 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – After months of negotiations, Georgia and Russia’s Gazprom retained a deal that will give Georgia 10% of Gazprom’s gas throughput to Armenia. The deal was heralded by the Georgian side as a victory. They said that Gazprom had wanted Georgia to charge it a transit fee for hosting a pipeline to Armenia and then pay for its own gas.

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(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

Kyrgyz GDP declines

APRIL 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s GDP stood at 79b som ($1.15b) in the first quarter of the year, a decrease of 4.9% compared to the same period last year, the national statistics committee said. Officials blamed industrial output and precious metals production for the decline. Without accounting for the Kumtor gold mine, the country would have seen its GDP increase by 1%.

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(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

ENA to upgrade Armenian power distribution system

APRIL 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA), the Armenian national grid, said it would invest 20b drams ($42m) into modernising the country’s power distribution system. The largest proportion of this cash will be spent on updating the metering system. Russia-based, but Armenian-owned, Tashir Group bought ENA last year from Russia’s Inter RAO. Electricity is a sensitive topic in Armenia. Last year, when ENA tried to increase prices, streets protests forced it to back down.

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(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

Arrested Kazakh journalist suffers high blood pressure

APRIL 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Setykazy Matayev, a senior figure in Kazakhstan’s media scene and the former head of President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s press office, was sent to hospital suffering from high blood pressure. He was arrested last month and charged with corruption. He is the the most high-profile journalist to be arrested during a crackdown by the authorities on media over the past few months. Analysts have said the crackdown could be linked to a drop in the economy.

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(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

Tajik and Kyrgyz migration start to rise

APRIL 8 2016, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — Migration from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Russian cities rose in April, signalling an improvement in Russia’s economy and also, potentially, giving all-important remittance flows back to Central Asia a boost.

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan marked an increase of 0.2% and 1.8% in the number of migrants in Russia compared to the same time last year, according to official statistics from the Russian Federal Migration Service. It recorded its data on April 6.

The rise may be small but it is important as it breaks a downward trend over the past 18 months. Also, official figures only report on a portion of the total migrant population as a large part of it is illegal. When official statistics go up, analysts believe the overall number of migrants grows even faster.

Together with Uzbekistan, which recorded the same number of people living in Russia this year as 2015, people from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan represent the most important migrant populations from Central Asia. The home countries of these migrant workers depend heavily on remittances from their migrant workers.

Migrant numbers to Russia had slowed significantly in the past two years due to tougher migration policies and a sharp depreciation in the rouble at the end of 2014, linked to a fall in oil prices and a recession. The drop in the value of the rouble also depressed the value of remittances that migrants were sending home.

This year, though, the rouble has gained around 17% against the US dollar since the low point of 81/$1 in mid-January and the economic situation in Russia appears to have improved enough to attract migrants once again.

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(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

Georgian court rules surveillance bill unconstitutional

APRIL 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s Constitutional Court ruled that a 2014 surveillance bill is unconstitutional, rolling back on a controversial piece of legislation. The law allowed the security services to have unrestricted access to telecom operators’ networks to monitor communications. President Giorgi Margvelashvili had vetoed the bill in November 2014, but the Parliament overrode the veto and adopted the legislation.

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(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)

Kazakh President signs Iran deal

APRIL 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev flew to Tehran to meet with President Hassan Rouhani sign deals worth around $1b, giving Kazakhstan-Iran economic ties a major boost. Kazakhstan has been forthright at trying to boost economic ties with Iran since sanctions were relaxed earlier this year.

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(News report from Issue No. 276, published on April 15 2016)