SEPT. 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police arrested the governor of the Kostanai region in north Kazakhstan, Akhmetbek Akhmetzhanov, for corruption. Kazakh officials have arrested a handful of senior regional officials over the past year or so for corruption.
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 11 2015, YEREVAN (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian gas monopoly Gazprom agreed to cut the price of gas it sells to Armenia by 12%, giving the Armenian government much needed economic breathing space.
The economic turmoil blowing through the former Soviet region has hit Armenia hard. Its dram currency has lost around 20% of its value and its economy is stalling.
Inflation is also rising and protesters have become increasingly agitated about utility price increases. Earlier this year, thousands of people demonstrated against proposed electricity price rises, eventually forcing the government into a climb-down.
Now Gazprom, which owns 100% of Armenia’s gas network, appears to have taken pity on Armenia.
Shushan Sardaryan, a spokeswoman for Gazprom Armenia, said that the new price was set at $165, down from $189, for 1,000 cubic metres of gas.
“The current price of natural gas was based on an exchange rate of $1 equalling 416 Armenian drams,” she told reporters. “But the exchange rate significantly differs from this level and the fluctuations damaged the company.”
The dram is now hovering at around 480 against the US dollar.
Ms Sardaryan also made the point that although Russia had reduced the cost of its gas to Armenia, this price reduction would not be passed on to consumers.
Instead, the saving would be made by the government. Armenia has also floated the idea of pricing its gas in roubles, rather than US dollars, a move which would, in theory, protect it from price rises linked to the devaluation of its dram currency.
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Norway’s foreign minister Boerge Brende visited Georgia to meet with President Giorgi Margvelshvili and PM Irakli Garibashili. In Tbilisi Mr Brende underlined Norway’s support for Georgia’s territorial integrity. Importantly for Georgia, Norway is a NATO country.
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Car-maker GM Uzbekistan’s sales to Russia in Jan.-Aug. fell by 53% compared to the same period last year, it said. GM Uzbekistan is a joint venture between General Motors and the Uzbek government. It sold 13,752 cars to Russia in Jan.-Aug.
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Aisultan Nazarbayev, grandson of Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, has said he wants to be head of Kazakhstan’s football association. Mr Nazarbayev is already head of the club that owns FC Astana which has qualified for the UEFA Champions League.
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan will spend $4.3b over the next three years improving living conditions around the Aral Sea, media reported. The Aral Sea had been the fourth largest lake in the world but upstream Soviet irrigation policies diverted water from its tributary rivers and shrunk it to a fraction of its former size.
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Members of Turkmenistan’s Council of Elders, an advisory body chaired by President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, have urged the government to charge people for using gas and water, media reported.
Free gas and water for people has been a cornerstone of society in Turkmenistan. Charging for it would be a major policy switch and may indicate that the economic turmoil that has has hit the region in the past year has had a heavy impact on Turkmenistan.
“Our people have, for many years, enjoyed unprecedented and unparalleled benefits, such as free water and gas. Given that today the standard of living has increased significantly, I believe it is time to abolish these benefits and introduce a fee,” official media quoted Gozel
Saparmyradova, a physics teacher and a member of the council, as saying.
She was backed up by Khudainazar Atageldiyev, described as a caterer.
“The new amendments to the Constitution will contribute to the development of the non-public sector of the economy,” he said.
Mr Berdymukhamedov was present at the meeting and had earlier delivered a speech in which he had showcased entrepreneurship in Turkmenistan. He didn’t mention the perilous state of the country’s economics nor charging for utilities.
But Mr Berdymukhamedov has previously used the Council of Elders to leak out policy changes and he may be considering charging for gas and water.
What impact this has on the population remains to be seen.
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Perhaps the most important feature of news and data from the region’s money markets this week was details about the various Central Banks’ gold and currency reserves.
Kazakhstan’s Central Bank said it had increased its reserves in August to $29.1b. Kazakhstan has amassed reserves over the past 3 months after spending around $400m in April to contain the effects of the regional financial crisis.
In Kyrgyzstan, the Central Bank’s reserves hit $2b, according to the Central Bank, back up to the levels of August 2014.
In Baku it was another story. The Central Bank has been spending ferociously since it devalued its manat currency by a third in February. According to the state-linked Trend news agency, the Azerbaijani Central Bank spent 14% of its foreign currency reserves in August. In the last year, Azerbaijan has spent half its foreign currency reserves trying to defend the manat.
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Obi Zulol, a Tajik soft drink producer, opened a new, 3.7m somoni ($600,000) factory in Dushanbe. The company holds the licence to produce and sell brands from Canadian distributor Cott Corporation, such as RC Cola. This is Obi Zulol’s second soft drinks plant in Dushanbe.
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The biggest movers on the stock markets were copper producer KAZ Minerals which finished the week up 8%, Roxi Petroleum settled down 12% and Centerra Gold fell by 6.6%.
KAZ Minerals’ share price has fluctuated wildly, hit by China’s economic health and commodity prices. It is now trading at 162 pence, up from around 150 pence at the start of the week. It is sensitive to the value of the tenge which weakened by 10% this week and gave KAZ Minerals a lift.
Roxi Petroleum’s main oil assets are in Kazakhstan.
Its shares fell after it said it was having to downgrade the value of its assets by 28% in line with the fall in the tenge last month.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)