Category Archives: Uncategorised

Kazakh President unveils economic plan

NOV. 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a speech to the nation, Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev ordered Kazakhstan’s government to spend more money on infrastructure projects to counter the drag caused by a slowing Russian economy and falling oil prices.

The hastily arranged policy speech caught observers by surprise. Mr Nazarbayev usually waits until his state-of- the-nation speech in January to unveil new policy.

“The tough times for which we prepared ourselves with the National Oil Fund have come. It’s time to use these reserves,” he said during his combative address.

Kazakhstan has amassed a sovereign wealth fund of roughly $77b to counter downturns in commodity prices — the economy is mainly reliant on oil and gas exports — as well as to defend the tenge currency when it is under pressure from a falling rouble.

And Mr Nazarbayev is acutely aware that economic progress is a cornerstone of his popularity.

Mr Nazarbayev pledged to inject $3b every year into Kazakhstan’s economy, during 2015/17. He also said that inter-governmental banks have pledged to match this cash injection.

“The investment from the National Fund must be necessarily accompanied by structural reforms,” he said. “This money will be channelled to develop transport, energy, industrial and social infrastructure.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)

IMF says Turkmen growth at 10%

NOV. 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The IMF completed a mission to Turkmenistan and said that economic growth measured between 10% and 11% this year. Importantly the IMF said Turkmenistan was sheltered from the slowdown in neighbouring economies, and in particular Russia, because of its limited exposure to foreign markets.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)

Uzbek authorities sacked head of Tashkent police

NOV. 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The authorities in Uzbekistan have sacked the powerful head of the Tashkent police force, Colonel Abdumajid Mullajonov, and several of his deputies, media reported.

Over the past year intrigue has gripped Uzbekistan over the demise of the once all-power daughter of President Islam Karimov, Gulnara Karimova, and her associates. Sources in Tashkent said, though, that dismissal of Colonel Mullajonov, the son of the Central Bank chief, was not linked to politics.

Instead media said he had been sacked for corruption and bribery.

The importance of the change of leadership at the Tashkent police force is to highlight the flux that these powerful Uzbek institutions are currently going through.

Uzbek sources said Colonel Mullajonov allegedly misappropriated businesses of a sugar magnate who was a close business partner of Ms Karimova, and that he owned dozens of fuel stations in the two largest cities in Uzbekistan.

Uzbek politics, business and power are closely linked. The sacking of Colonel Mullajonov and his colleagues adds more intrigue to a fluid domestic situation.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)

Tajikistan secures more China funding

NOV. 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – On yet another trip to Beijing, Tajik President Emmomali Rakhmon agreed a deal with Chinese PM Li Keqiang to increase China’s investment in energy, transport and agriculture. Although no details of the deal were released it does underline China’s increasingly dominant investor position.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)

Armenia to go to Baku Games

NOV. 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a sign of improving Azerbaijani- Armenian relations, Armenia said that it would send a team to participate at the inaugural European Games in Baku next year. Armenia and Azerbaijan are arch enemies and have disputed the region of Nagorno-Karabakh since the early 1990s.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)

Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan agree energy deal

NOV. 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan agreed a deal for Astana to meet most of Bishkek’s electricity deficit, albeit at a price greater than Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev would have wanted to pay.

The deal, finalised during a meeting between Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Mr Atambayev in Astana, means Kyrgyzstan must pay roughly three times more for the imported electricity than Kyrgyz citizens pay for domestically-produced electricity. Importantly, it also shows Kazakhstan’s political clout in Kyrgyzstan is growing.

An estimated deficit of 2b kilowatt hours (kWh) this year, caused by a shortage of water in its reservoirs, public reaction to shutoffs drove Bishkek and the potential to sign the deal.

Mr Atambayev will be relieved to have made the deal to import 1.4b kWh from Kazakhstan but here are still problems. He will have to make up the shortfall from somewhere else, possibly Turkmenistan, and he will have to finance the extra costs.

Currently the government has suggested modest tariff increases beginning Jan. 1. These are bound to irritate people in Kyrgyzstan.

Other agreements reached by Mr Atambayev and Mr Nazarbayev at the meeting are also indicative and suggested that Kazakhstan maintains significant leverage over its weaker neighbour.

Mr Nazarbayev promised that a fleet of Kyrgyzstan-bound fuel wagons, owned by Russian energy giant Rosneft and held by Kazakh customs officials without explanation since April, would be allowed to cross the two countries’ mutual border. He also pledged a $100 million grant to Kyrgyzstan as the country prepares to enter the Eurasian Economic.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 208, published on Nov.12 2014)

Armenia opens embassy in Stockholm

NOV. 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – During a visit to Sweden by Armenian foreign minister Edward Nalbandalian, Armenia opened an embassy in Stockholm. Armenia has been looking to open more embassies abroad to both boost its support base and lobby for allies to back it with its dispute with Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 210, published on Nov. 26 2014)

Kyrgyzstan becomes ideological battleground

OCT. 31 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In an article for a policy website, the US ambassador in Bishkek, Pamela Spratlen, appeared to cement Kyrgyzstan’s place as an ideological sparring ground between Washington and the Kremlin.

In particular, Ms Spratlen, who has been the US ambassador to Kyrgyzstan since April 2011 highlighted the differences between Washington and the Kremlin over Russia’s aim to pull Kyrgyzstan into the Eurasian Economic Union as well as their divergent views over gay rights.

“Another challenge to our efforts to support Kyrgyzstan’s democracy is its growing partnership with Russia,” she wrote on Council of American Ambassadors website, a website for essays written by senior US diplomats. “It remains an unanswered question how Kyrgyzstan can maintain its democratic trajectory while pursuing this partnership.”

Ms Spratlen specifically said the Customs Union, which will become the Eurasian Economic Union next year and grow to include Kyrgyzstan and Armenia alongside Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, was as much about politics as economics.

Legislation passing through Kyrgyzstan’s parliament bears all the hallmarks of Russian political influence. A parliamentary bill forbidding “positive attitudes towards non-traditional sexual orientations” was overwhelmingly endorsed at its first reading last month, echoing a similar bill passed in 2013 in Russia.

Importantly, Ms Spratlen said Kyrgyzstan may be sleep walking into membership of the Eurasian Economic Union because it feels like it has no choice, especially as it is surrounded by more authoritarian countries in Central Asia.

“Both officials and business leaders appear unenthused, but resigned to this choice, seeing a lack of better options,” she wrote.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)

Azerbaijan’s C.Bank warns on excessive consumer borrowing

NOV. 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s economy is, in general, holding firm despite problems in Russia and falling price of oil. That said, a growing household debt problem is threatening to undermine its relatively good position.

The Central Bank said that in the nine months to the end of September, consumers’ overdue loans had risen by over 22%.

Azerbaijanis are enjoying increasingly easy access to cash, something that international institutions and economists have told the Azerbaijani authorities to tighten up.

Lending but not the checks and balances needed for a sensible lending policy, have grown exponentially over the past two or three years.

In an article for the news site Media forum, the economist Samir Aliyev said that these disparages could cause serious problems for Azerbaijan.

“The share of these (consumer) loans increased by 16.7% in the last nine months,” he said of bank’s loan portfolio. “There has also been a decrease in the assets of the bank.”

This is a bad combination. Azerbaijani banks have been warned time and again to impose tighter controls over lending. If they don’t, the banks may find that they are holding a large proportion of bad consumer debt.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)

Russia may block food transport

OCT. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia may block trucks and trains carrying food from the EU and Norway to Kazakhstan from travelling across it territory because of an import ban. Russia has banned produce from the EU and Norway in retaliation for sanctions imposed by the West.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)