APRIL 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev dismissed rumours a devaluation of the tenge was now imminent after he had won another election. “There are no such plans,” he said at a news conference. The tenge has come under enormous pressure to devalue because of a fall in oil prices and a drop in the Russian rouble.
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(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)
APRIL 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s prosecutor-general Rashid Qodirov has resigned unexpectedly, media reported. Mr Qodirov was made famous for ordering the arrest last year of Gulnara Krimova, eldest daughter of president Islam Karimov, for various economic crimes.
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(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)
APRIL 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia has been negotiating with several low-cost airlines — including Ryanair, EasyJet and Air Berlin — to fly to Tbilisi, media reported quoting deputy economy minister Ketevan Bochorishvili. Tourism is a major source of income for Georgia.
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(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)
APRIL 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Cycling’s Astana Pro Team, a Kazakhstan-backed franchise, will retain its World Tour Licence despite allegations of mass doping (April 24).
The International Cycling Union’s Licence Commission’s decision surprised many who had been urging it to take strong action to clean up the sport.
The International Cycling Union suggested in February that Astana Pro Team would lose its licence over what it described as “compelling grounds” that it had doped.
This would have embarrassed Kazakhstan. Last year an Astana Pro Team rider, Vincenzo Nibali, won the Tour de France.
Some online stories suggested that the International Cycling Union wanted to avoid a legal case with Astana Pro Team and so dodged scrapping its licence. Instead it said Astana Pro Team would be subject to special conditions next season.
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(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)
APRIL 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s Central Bank held interest rates steady at 11% because of slowing inflation, media reported. Previously the Central Bank has aggressively raised interest rates to try and curb inflation generated by the falling value of the som.
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(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)
APRIL 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s government said it will hand out a one-off bonus of 1,000 lari ($431) to the 2,000 World War II veterans still alive to mark the 70th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany. The payment will boost the Georgian Dream coalition which has seen its popularity drop.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)
APRIL 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian sports minister Levan Kipiani resigned after a row with a parliamentary committee, triggering a vote of confidence in PM Irakli Garibashvili’s government.
In-fighting has dogged Mr Garibashvili’s Georgian Dream coalition government since it was voted into power in October 2012 and his opponents now sense an opportunity to kill it off.
Nino Burjanadze, a former PM and now an opposition leader, said: “Early parliamentary elections and real changes in the government are the only option at the moment”
Georgia is grappling with a fiercely divided political scene and a worsening economy linked to a decline in Russia’s finances.
The governmental crisis makes stability even more precarious. Mr Kipiani was the seventh member of Mr Garibashvili’s 20-member cabinet to quit. Under the constitution if a third of ministers resign, a no confidence vote is triggered within seven days.
And the Georgian Dream majority in parliament is wafer thin.
A handful of defections means that it holds 75 seats out of the current 149 filled seats. One seat is empty.
This means there is no guarantee the government will survive the vote, and if it fails, new elections are likely.
It is the speed of the government’s collapse that has taken people by surprise. Mr Kipiani was the third member of the government to resign in quick succession, following environment minister Elguja Khokrishvili and regional development minister Davit Shavliashvili.
Will Dunbar, a Tbilisi-based analyst, said: “To lose one minister in a week looks bad, to lose three looks like care- lessness and carelessness is one thing this government does well.”
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(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)
APRIL 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A move by Tajikistan’s government to ban exchange booths from dealing in currencies has pushed currency trading into the black market and reduced the value of the Tajik somoni further, Eurasianet reported. The somoni has lost around 17% of its value this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)
APRIL 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Baku sentenced yet another human rights lawyer to prison on various charges including tax evasion, media reported. Intiqam Aliyev received a 7-1/2 year prison sentence. His supporters say the offences are false.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)
APRIL 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan has made plans to deal with a sustained slump in demand from Russia for its cars, media reported quoting an Uzbek government source.
It said that sales would remain relatively low for its cars until 2019.
This is important because demand from Russia is the main driver of Uzbek car production. This is centred on the GM Uzbekistan plant in Andijan, east Uzbekistan.
GM Uzbekistan, which is 25% owned by US carmaker GM and 75% owned by the Uzbek government, recorded a 38% slump in car sales to Russia in 2014. It also recorded a slump of around 60% in the first quarter of the year, according to reports.
News agencies said sales to Russia between January and March were 5,411 cars from GM Uzbekistan compared to 12,858 in 2014.
Like other countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, Uzbekistan is strug- gling to cope with the severe economic collapse over the past few months, triggered by a collapse in oil prices and sanctions on Russia. The Russian economy is a vital engine for the wider regional economy.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)