Category Archives: Uncategorised

Tajik state-firms’ debt deepens

JULY 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s national energy company Barqi Tojik has blamed another massive state-run concern, the aluminium smelter TALCO, for part of its growing $300m debt.

Over a third of Barqi Tojik’s debts are owed to a pair of hydroelectric power facilities, which TALCO officially co-owns with Russia and Iran. Other debts are unpaid taxes to the state, salary arrears, and unpaid loans.

In an interview with Asia-Plus, a Barqi Tojik official said TALCO owed the company $50 million in unpaid energy bills. TALCO, which as reported is itself suffering from a major slump in demand for its products, has denied the allegations.

Barqi Tojik and TALCO are two of Tajikistan’s most significant state-owned companies and both appear to be in trouble.

Barqi Tojik’s debts have grown as public sector clients like TALCO (which alone consumes at least a sixth of national energy production) and other major industrial facilities renege on payments. TALCO reportedly haemorrhaged $40m last year and laid off a fifth of its workforce. The company has suffered from low prices for aluminium and alleged corruption within the political elite. Tajikistan’s economy looks increasing fragile.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)

Eurocement pressured in Uzbekistan

JULY 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Uzbekistan has annulled a takeover of cement producer Akhangarancement by Russia’s Eurocement in 2006, paving the way for the state to renationalise it. The ruling is a blow for foreign businesses in Uzbekistan and underlines their suspicion of the Uzbek government.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)

Religious tension rising in Azerbaijan

JULY 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – In rural Azerbaijan religious violence has increased because of extremism in Syria and Iraq, eurasianet.org reported. It said that in a village a group of Shi’a Muslims shaved the beard of a Sunni man. The next day Sunni Muslims attacked Shi’a group.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)

Detained Tajik researcher

JULY 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Pressure has been growing on Tajikistan to release Alexander Sodiqov, the Tajik researcher linked to the Universities of Toronto and Exeter who was arrested and charged with spying last month. Mr Sodiqov was detained in the restive region of Gorno-Badakhshan, southeast Tajikistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)

Afghan forces kill Taliban along Turkmen border

JULY 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Afghan security forces killed 14 Taliban fighters in a gun battle along the Afghanistan-Turkmenistan border, media reported. Although the battle didn’t involve Turkmen forces, it acts as a reminder the Taliban operates on the edge of its border. Turkmenistan has blamed several attacks on its border posts on the Taliban.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)

Armenia growth hit

JULY 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s government confirmed that it had lowered its economic growth predictions to 4% from 5.2% because of sanctions imposed on Russia, its most important trading partner, since it annexed Crimea from Ukraine earlier this year. Most countries in the former Soviet Union have downgraded growth estimates because of sanctions.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)

Kyrgyzstan’s Customs Union woes

JULY 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A new report released by the Kyrgyz government’s main think tank, the National Institute of Strategic Studies (NISS), said that joining the Customs Union (CU) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EaEU) may trigger short term economic and social discomfort.

The report is the first serious analysis of the costs and benefits of membership carried out by the government itself. It will make for troubling reading for President Almazbek Atambayev who is still trying to sell the idea of membership of the CU/EaEU to the general public.

Membership of the CU will probably trigger inflation which may lead to political unrest and possibly even a rise in Islamic radicalism, the report said. The Macroeconomic situation may subsequently improve, the report added, without making predictions as to how long that might take.

The report also stressed several benefits of the CU, including duty-free oil imports from Russia — a benefit Kyrgyzstan already enjoys — and security via the Collective Security Treaty Organization, of which Kyrgyzstan is already a member.

On Kyrgyzstan’s frail democracy, the report was also incisive. Parliamentarianism would be better developed outside the EaEU than inside it, while norms of governance and nationalist sentiment in Russia could hamper Kyrgyzstan’s political development, the report said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)

Cash to Uzbekistan falls

JULY 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Remittances to Uzbekistan from workers in Russia decreased by nearly 10% in the first quarter of the year, compared to the same period in 2013, media reported quoting the Central Bank. This is roughly similar to figures reported by other countries in the former Soviet Union and reflect Russia’s weakened economic state.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)

Armenia authorities worry about electricity

JULY 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Concerned about possible unrest connected with electricity price increases, Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan has ordered his policy chiefs to investigate whether it can soften the price rises for less well-off families, media reported.

Last month Armenia announced that it would increase the price for electricity by 10% form Aug. 1, its first price increase in two years.

Opposition politicians have said that the price increase will trigger inflation across the country and that this is just the first of several price planned price rises.

Armenia’s government has already had to negotiate through a difficult year.

A government resigned because of public unhappiness over its pension reform plans, economic growth estimates have been downgraded because of sanctions on Russia and now an electricity price increase threatens to erode the government’s popularity further.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)

Kazakhstan buys 10 planes

JULY 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan finalised a deal with Canada’s Bombardier aircraft maker to buy 10 Q400 passenger aircraft for $230m for its new domestic airline.

The Q400 is a 70 person twin-propeller airplane, designed for short range flights.

The size of the deal underlines Kazakhstan’s spending power and also its drive to build an airline specifically to service its domestic air routes.

Domestic transport is one sector that the Kazakh government has ploughed cash into over the past few years, specifically upgrading its rail and flight network.

“Each aircraft cost $23m. In March and April 2015 five or six aircraft will be delivered to Kazakhstan. From then on, they will start to operate domestic flights,” media quoted Nurjan Shakirov, head of the newly incorporated Air Kazakhstan, as saying.

This is, of course, good news for Kazakh air travels as well as for business and industry. It’s unclear, though, what impact this new airline will have on Air Astana, the country’s current flag carrier. Officials have said that Air Astana will concentrate on international flights and major regional routes, such as Almaty to Astana, while Air

Kazakhstan will connect less frequent domestic routes.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)