Category Archives: Uncategorised

Polyethylene imports drop in Kazakhstan

MARCH 31 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Imports of polyethylene, used to produce plastics, into Kazakhstan fell by 48% to 12,500 tonnes in January-February 2016 compared to the same period last year, MRC, a consulting company, said in a report. According to the report, imports in February stood at a similar level to last year. The fall may also be another indication of the worsening economic downturn.

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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Russia will cut gas price, says Armenian PM

MARCH 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenian PM Hovik Abrahamyan said that Russia will reduce gas prices and that a final decision will be taken when PM Dmitri Medvedev visits Yerevan next week. The Armenian newspaper Haykakan Zhamanak reported that the discount could be 12%. The Hrapak newspaper also reported that the pricing could be switched to roubles.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Kyrgyz President wins votes

MARCH 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The ruling Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan won three of the six major cities that held local elections, cementing its authority other regional cities that had previously been considered staunchly pro-opposition. The SDPK won in Osh, Tokmok and Kemin, three important regional cities in Kyrgyzstan.

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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

New Astoria opens in Georgia

MARCH 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Astoria, a private Georgian company, opened its second hotel in the centre of Tbilisi, highlighting a boom in tourism. The company, owned by businessmen Malkhaz Manvelishvili and Amiran Gozalishvili, has spent 32m lari ($14m) on building the hotels. Tbilisi has been short of hotel rooms.

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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Kazakhstan- based Tethys losses rise

MARCH 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Guernsey-based Tethys Petroleum said its losses more than quadrupled in 2015 compared to the previous year, mostly due to the depreciation of some of its Kazakh assets. Tethys lost $74.6m in 2015. According to the company’s yearly report, the tenge depreciation also dented revenues. The tenge lost around half its value against the US dollar in 2015.

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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Presidential Office empties the most famous store in Tajikistan

MARCH 28 2016, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — The tops floors of the most prominent department store in Tajkiistan’s capital, the Soviet-era TSUM, are eerily quiet.

Most of the traders who sold mobile phones, clothes and Tajik national mementos to foreign tourists have quit their leases. They said the Presidential Administration took over the company that owned the store earlier this year and has forced up rent.

Aziz, a 26-year-old man who sold Tajik-themed gifts, told The Conway Bulletin’s Dushanbe correspondent that rent used to be around $7 per square metre.

“Now they want us to pay more than $20 per square meter,” Aziz said, the anger clearly audible in his voice.

He shook his head, more to himself than to anybody else, and continued to pack up his products into boxes scattered across the floor. Like most of the other small traders he was quitting TSUM.

“I am moving out because I cannot pay the rent. Trade is not good in TSUM, not so many people come nowadays,” he said.

Traders said that a month ago, President Emomali Rakhmon’s Executive Office, which is headed by his daughter Ozoda Rakhmon, took control of the company that ran TSUM. The Investment and State Property Control Committee said that TSUM was privatised illegally in the 1990s. Officially, TSUM has now been re-nationalised although critics of Mr Rakhmon have said that it is now effectively under the control of his family.

Built in 1960’s, TSUM is one of the few remaining Soviet-built buildings in Dushanbe and had been one of the most popular trading centres. But Tajikistan is hurting from a sharp economic downturn. The Bulletin’s correspondent said that while bigger shops selling various Western brands were still operating on the ground floor of TSUM, the first and second floors were almost entirely empty.

Mr Rakhmon’s Presidential Administration has not commented on allegations that it has inflated rent at TSUM but the accusations will bolster critics who accuse the president of corruption.

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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Afghan power line started, says Turkmen official

MARCH 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan officials said the new 146km Yoloten-Tahtabazar power transmission line to Afghanistan has started operations, reinforcing another electricity supply route into South Asia from Central Asia. Turkmenistan produced 22.5b kWh in 2015 and it is looking to increase both production and export.

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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Kazakhstan diverts route to driving licence

MARCH 29 2016, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — In a move designed to improve driving standards, the Kazakh government scrapped rules that forced learner drivers to take lessons at specialist driving schools before they can sit a test.

Previously, it was incumbent on the specialist driving schools to approve learners as ready to step up to take a driving test. This, the government said, added cost, bureaucracy and corruption that was putting people off taking driving exams.

Kazakhstan has one of the worst ratios of deadly accidents on its roads. In 2013, the World Health Organisation said that deaths by car accidents in Kazakhstan averaged 24.2 per 100,000 inhabitants, the highest rate among countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus and around four times higher than the European average. These are often attributable to poor roads or poorly maintained vehicles, but also to bad driving.

An official in the interior ministry told the Conway Bulletin on condition of anonymity that the new rules were designed to simplify government procedures, cut red tape and encourage people to sit a driving exam.

“It is done for simplification. If a person knows the rules, has some driving skills and he or she can pass the exams, we do not think it is necessary to make them study in driving schools,” he said.

Unsurprisingly, driving instructors were less than impressed.

The Kazakh Association of Driving Schools said that the government’s new rules may actually worsen the quality of driving in the country.

Learner driver Akbota Mulkibayeva also doubted the new system would eradicate corruption.

“It is sad because there will be even more bribes to pass the test now,” she said, emphasising Kazakhstan’s shifting and hard to eradicate corruption issues.

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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

ARETI looks for business in Turkmenistan

MARCH 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Igor Makarov, head of Russian company ARETI, previously known as ITERA, met with Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov to discuss cooperation in the energy sector. ARETI works in 21 offshore blocks in the Turkmen section of the Caspian Sea through a contract signed in 2009.

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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Turkmenistan discounts Turkish cargo

MARCH 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Turkish International Transport Association said Turkmenistan has started applying a 20% discount on “roll-on, roll-off” shipments of goods coming in from Azerbaijan since March 3. The discount on the fee has already helped boost Turkish-Turkmen trade relations according to the Association chief Fatih Sener. As it eyes markets for its gas, Turkmenistan is trying to improve relations with Turkey.

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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)