MARCH 5 2015 (The Bulletin) – Two senior officials in the Tbilisi government, Reno Chakhava, head of the mayor’s office, and his deputy, Mariam Shelegia, have resigned over continued allegations of corruption and bribe-taking, media reported. The resignations throw the most powerful civic council in Georgia into disarray.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 5 2015 (The Bulletin) – After years of pirating software, Georgia’s government signed a deal with Microsoft to officially licence its operating system and other products, signalling its desire to promote its IT sector.
According to a 2013 study by the Business Software Alliance, a US-based industry lobby group, Georgia had the highest global software piracy rate. Around 90% of all the software installed in the country was unlicensed, including the government’s software.
Giga Paitchadze, IT expert and well known blogger, said this was a step towards professionalising Georgia’s image.
“Using licensed software on a state level will have a spill over effect on Georgian society, it will be a soft recommendation to respect other people’s work,” he said. “Just as our own intellectual property, patents, and products, need to be protected around the world as well.”
The license agreement is expected to have a positive effect on the Georgian IT sector. In the past few years, IT has been a major focus point of both the current and the previous government to be more competitive globally.
The government has estimated that the deal with Microsoft will cost around $8m to buy all state agencies with the latest versions of Microsoft’s operating systems.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 11 2015 (The Bulletin) – Inmates in a prison in western Georgia have started a hunger strike over the postponement of their trials, the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported quoting one of the inmate’s lawyers. Western lobby groups have criticised Georgia previously for its harsh prison system and legal system.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 6 2015 (The Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s state energy company SOCAR plans to issue a Eurobond by the end of March, the company’s CEO Rovnag Abdullayev said. Mr Abdullayev said SOCAR was launching the Eurobond because of the slide in oil prices over the past six months or so which have hit the company’s profits.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 4 2015 (The Bulletin) – The highest court in France rejected an appeal by lawyers of former Kazakh opposition figure Mukhtar Ablyazov against his extradition to either Ukraine or Russia . This decision paves the way for a governmental decree to extradite Ablyazov who is wanted by Kazakhstan on various charges.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 11 2015 (The Bulletin) – Religious leaders in Kyrgyzstan issued a statement saying that it was not un-Islamic to vaccinate children against the measles virus, the Eurasianet website reported. This is important because health experts have blamed fears vaccinations were anti-Islamic for a surge in measles in Kyrgyzstan
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 10 2015 (The Bulletin) – Remittances to Uzbekistan from Russia dropped by 10% in 2014, media reported quoting a survey by the Russian analytical agency TMT and the CONTACT money transfer system.
While these figures are not official, they do add credence to the picture of tumbling economies in Central Asia and the South Caucasus because of a faltering Russian economy.
Importantly, reports said that analysts expected remittances from Russia to fall by around 25% this year. This will affect most Central Asian and South Caucasus countries, especially Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan which rely heavily on the flow of cash from Russia.
Proportionally, remittances make up a smaller proportion of the national income in Uzbekistan. In practice, though, it is a vital economic lifeline for many ordinary people.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 6 2015 (The Bulletin) – According to a recent publication by the Kazakhstan/Russia-funded Eurasian Development Bank (EDB), foreign investment in Kyrgyzstan in 2014 measured only $187m, down by 70% from 2013.
In 2013, the Central Asian country received over $623m in foreign direct investment (FDI), mainly from China, Russia, Britain, and Canada.
The EBD said the macroeconomic downturn which began in early 2014 was the main reason for the reduction of foreign activity. The recurring threat of nationalising the gold mine at Kumtor, together with monetary issues and galloping inflation, are also all factors.
The Kyrgyz government has tried to remedy the situation by increasing interest rates above 10% and protecting the national currency, the som, from the financial strains common throughout the region. Although it has performed better than the rouble, the som has lost over 20% against the dollar in the past six months.
FDI is a lifeline for countries like Kyrgyzstan, which rely on remittances from migrant workers abroad and capital injections from foreign investors.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 8 2015 (The Bulletin) – Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded the Speaker of the Azerbaijani parliament, Oqtay Asadov, and presidential adviser Ali Hasanov the Friendship Order, one of Russia’s highest civic awards.
Opposition groups in Azerbaijan immediately denounced the award as a crude attempt by Russia to curry favour with Azerbaijan.
Despite rows over energy policy, Azerbaijan has seemingly been shifting its political stance towards Russia over the past few years. The West has accused Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev of cracking down on dissent and free media.
In a comment on Facebook, Natig Jafarli, a senior figure in Azerbaijan’s opposition ReAL movement, said the government was getting closer to Russia.
“Imagine what would have happened if Barack Obama gave an award to opposition leaders. They would have been called betrayers and fifth columnists,” he wrote.
There was no official reaction from Azerbaijan’s government on the awards to Mr Hasanov and Mr Asadov.
The pro-government news website APA reported that they had been “Ogtay Asadov and A. Hasanov is (sic) awarded the order for greatly contributing to the strengthening of friendship and cooperation with the Russia Federation.”
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 6 2015 (The Bulletin) – At a Senate hearing in Astana, chairman of the ministry of finance’s revenue committee, Daulet Yergozhin, said the country was going to impose new measures against off-shoring cash.
This is important — if new legislation actually appears — as the issue of Kazakhstan’s wealthy getting their cash out of the country while poorer sections of the population suffer during an economic downturn could turn political.
A study published last month by Alexander Cooley and Jason Sharman, two academics, analysed the channels through which the Kazakh elite amassed “spectacular fortunes” in Western financial centres.
Mr Yergozhin wasn’t responding to these accusations. Instead he said Kazakhstan was working with Switzerland and Liechtenstein to reduce the flow of capital out of the country.
“Already this year, we are planning to put barriers against the movement of capital [to offshore locations] and we will start seeing the results of this policy early next year,” media quoted him as saying.
Kazakhstan has been looking was to bring capital back into the country. Last year it introduced an amnesty for people which repatriated cash. It has said that this amnesty has so far attracted $1b back into Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)