Category Archives: Uncategorised

Kazakh President agrees pension reform

JUNE 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – It looks as if Kazakhstan has gently reformed its state pension plan without creating too much of a fuss.

Reform of the generous Soviet-era pension scheme is a particularly thorny issue across the former Soviet Union. Armenia’s government resigned in April because of protests against its proposed changes to the pension scheme and last year in Kazakhstan, a minister resigned after suggesting that women should work for as long as men.

Now though, it looks as if the Kazakh government has gently pushed through the changes it needs to make.

State media reported that President Nursultan Nazarbayev had signed into law a plan to modernise pensions.

The basic premise of the new pension plan, which won’t come into effect until 2016, is that employers will pay the equivalent of 5% of their employees’ salaries to the government. This, media said, will be used by the government to cover a current shortfall in the pension scheme.

So, in total, Kazakh workers will from 2016 effectively contribute the equivalent of 15% of their salary to the government’s pension pot. Employees will pay 10% and companies another 5%.

As the increased pension contribution comes from companies, rather than from workers, it’s unlikely to trigger public protests. Analysts, though, have said that the pension hole has become so big that the Kazakh government may also decide to increase direct employee contributions. That may cause trouble.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)

ENI wants to develop Turkmenistan’s gas sector

JULY 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Despite taking a lot of criticism in Kazakhstan for its management of the Caspian Sea Kashagan oil project it appears that Central Asia is still high on the target list for future projects at Italy’s ENI.

ENI CEO Claudio Descalzi visited Ashgabat and spoke with Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov about increasing ENI’s presence in Turkmenistan. Reuters reported that Mr Descalzi had said that he wanted ENI to carry out a feasibility study on how to develop Turkmenistan’s gas sector.

“Concerning the development of future cooperation, the parties discussed options for gas valorization, agreeing that ENI will conduct a feasibility study in this regard,” ENI said in a short statement.

“ENI’s CEO also confirmed the company’s interest in expanding operations in offshore exploration.”

Last month ENI was wooing Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. It signed a deal with Kazakhstan to develop a new site in the Caspian Sea.

This appeared to please ENI’s investors and its share price rose 1.6% on the Italian stock market.

If ENI can secure a foothold in Turkmenistan, which has the world’s fourth largest gas reserves, the Italian stock market will no doubt like that too.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)

Ex Armenia PM to be envoy in US

JUNE 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia confirmed the appointment of Tigran Sarkisyan, PM for six years until April, as its ambassador in the US. Mr Sarkisyan resigned in April because reforms to the pension system that his government had suggested were deeply unpopular.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)

Ex Georgian police chief arrested

JULY 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in the Netherlands arrested Giorgi Dgebuadze, Georgia’s former military police chief, over a year after the Georgian authorities issued a warrant for his arrest. The Georgian Prosecutor- General wants to try Mr Dgebuadze for instigating a system of torture during his time in charge of the military police.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)

Azerbaijan’s museum wins UK architecture award

JUNE 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Baku’s newly built Heydar Aliyev Centre, likened to a whirl of whipped cream, won the prestigious British Design Museum’s “Design of the Year” award for its iconic shape and feel.

The award is a triumph for Baku on a civic scale. It has worked hard to transform itself into a modern city. Millions of dollars of oil cash has been spent on beautifying the city and this means building iconic structures.

The Heydar Aliyev building is just one example of the city’s ambitious rebuilding project — others include the three feline 190m-high Flame Towers and the sparkling Crystal Hall that hosted the 2012 Eurovision contest — and its curves certainly leave an impression.

“It is an intoxicatingly beautiful building by the most brilliant architect at the height of her office’s powers,” the Guardian quoted juror Piers Gough, of CZWG Architects, as saying.

“It is as pure and sexy as Marilyn’s blown skirt.”

But as with most of Baku’s architectural accolades, and it has attracted a reasonable bag, they come with criticism of Azerbaijan’s human rights record.

Human Rights Watch and other lobby groups criticised the Design Museum for honouring a country whose record on free speech has been worsening. They said that Dame Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi-born Britain-based architect of the museum, should use her award to promote human rights.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)

Tajik electricity prices to rise

JUNE 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan will increase its electricity prices in July by 15%, media reported. This is the first electricity price increase for two years and may trigger frustration. One media outlet quoted a Tajik official saying prices had to rise because of the poor financial position of the state energy producer.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)

Georgia signs deal with EU

JUNE 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Alongside Moldova and Ukraine, Georgia signed an important deal to integrate its economy further with the EU.

The Association Agreement is a major step towards Georgia’s end goal of becoming an EU member state.

Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili was under no illusion on the significance of the agreement. It was, he said, an historic moment for Georgia.

“Unofficially we applied for membership today. Officially, it depends on progress that we will make,” he said.

Georgia has been lobbying for membership of the EU and NATO for years. Former President Mikheil Saakashvili managed to antagonise Russia during his push to join the West. Perhaps the new government’s greatest achievement so far has been to pursue its pro-West agenda while also keeping relations with Russia amicable.

Importantly, signing the Association Agreement has the potential to rock relations with Russia. It was this deal, initially put forward in November last year, that Viktor Yanukovoch, then Ukraine’s president, declined to sign, triggering protests that lead to a civil war.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)

British man jailed for child porn in Kazakhstan

JUNE 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Uralsk, western Kazakhstan, jailed British oil worker Peter Baruch for eight years for child pornography related offences. Police arrested Baruch, who had worked in Kazakhstan since 2009, earlier this year after he was caught paying an underage girl to pose naked for him in his hotel room.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)

Azerbaijan’s media freedom cracks

JUNE 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Media lobby group Reporters Without Borders accused Azerbaijan of sentencing opposition newspaper editor Hilal Mammadov to five years in jail on trumped-up charges of drug trafficking, inciting hatred and treason. Azerbaijan’s Supreme Court had the day before upheld a sentenced passed in September 2013 against Mammadov.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)

Turkmenistan harvests grain

JUNE 275 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan has begun to collect an estimated 1.6m tonnes of grain this year, media reported. Since 2010 when it first started exporting grain, Turkmenistan has become an increasingly important global grain producer. Officials have said that it wants to boost grain production further.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 190, published on July 2 2014)