JUNE 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) -Annualised inflation in Georgia slipped back to 2.4% in May, its slowest rate this year, the national statistics agency reported. Compared to April, average prices dropped by 0.3%. Food prices dropped 1.7%. Georgia’s Central Bank is concerned about a generally slowing economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 187, published on JUNE 4 2014)
JUNE 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel said NATO would not offer Georgia a membership deal when it meets in Cardiff, Wales, in September. Ms Merkel’s statement means that Georgia will have to wait further before it is offered a NATO membership, a key plank of its foreign policy. Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili was visiting Germany.
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(News report from Issue No. 187, published on JUNE 4 2014)
May 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) -Kazakhstan is considering buying Predator drones from US company General Atomics, media reported. A final deal has not yet been signed but the news is another sign that Kazakhstan is investing heavily in its military. A senior official at the ministry of defence told IHS that Kazakhstan planned to sign 30 arms deals worth $1.2b.
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(News report from Issue No. 187, published on JUNE 4 2014)
JUNE 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Human Rights Watch said a court ruling of defamation against the independent news outlet Asia-Plus had damaged media freedom in Tajikistan. Last year, Asia-Plus wrote a story about a poet returning to Tajikistan. It expressed scepticism over the poet’s apparent praise of Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon.
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(News report from Issue No. 187, published on JUNE 4 2014)
MAY 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) -Risking the ire of human rights activists, Latvian President Andris Berzins travelled to Tashkent to meet with Uzbekistan’s leader Islam Karimov.
The human rights lobby reviles Mr Karimov for allegedly imprisoning and torturing his enemies, charges he denies. It also blames Uzbek soldiers for opening fire on civilians in the town of Andijan in 2005, killing hundreds.
Mr Berzins’ visit to Tashkent was made more controversial because a trip to Uzbekistan by a European leader is so rare.
Photos of Mr Karimov and Mr Berzins walking together and inspecting a guard of honour are a propaganda coup for Uzbekistan. Mr Karimov rarely gets to hob-knob with Western leaders. He normally has to make do with yet another glad-handing photo-shoot with a senior Chinese official or perhaps with a Central Asian colleague.
So this adds extra layers of significance to Mr Berzins’ Tashkent sojourn.
Latvia is also taking over the rotating presidency of the EU in 2015 and has promised to focus on improving relations with Central Asia.
Relations between the EU and Ubekistan have been improving. NATO’s extraction from neighbouring Afghanistan through Uzbekistan has mainly driven this reconciliation but, even so, Mr Karimov is kept at arm’s length. Earlier this year, Uzbek officials cancelled a trip by Mr Karimov to the Czech Republic because government ministers had indicated that they didn’t want to meet him.
Latvia, though, has taken a different approach. There’s little doubt that Latvian-Uzbek business will increase because of it, as will Mr Karimov’s domestic standing.
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(News report from Issue No. 187, published on JUNE 4 2014)
May 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia has offered Kyrgyzstan $1.2b to help it join the Eurasian Economic Union (EaEU), Temir Sariev, Kyrgyzstan’s economy minister, told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in an interview. Mr Sariev said that $1b would be given as a long-term loan and $200m as a grant.
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(News report from Issue No. 187, published on JUNE 4 2014)
MAY 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a ceremony in Astana, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko signed into existence the Eurasian Economic Union (EaEU).
The EaEU is the successor of the Customs Union and is designed to further integrate its members’ economies. The rhetoric has been of high praise for the EaEU but the reaction on the street has been markedly different, as a correspondent for The Bulletin discovered in Almaty.
Berik, a 35-year-old office worker wasn’t even sure of the treaty. “Who are the parties involved?” he said. “Belarus and Russia. I’m not sure, with them it could go either way. It could either be a success or a failure.”
An ethnic Russian lady hurrying along the street also said she doubted the value of the group. “It would have been better if they had not signed the treaty,” she said.
Other people agreed. Most had either not heard of the EaEU or said they doubted it would be positive.
One of the few people to support the formation of the Eurasian Economic Union was Saken a 50-year-old man who worked in real estate. He said that Soviet era ties remained and that the union would be stronger than if countries pursued their own agendas.
“In the Eurasian Union we will welcome troubled countries like Kyrgyzstan and Armenia, who are not really as stable as we are, but we will definitely help them, with the same friendship we used to relate to each other during the Soviet era,” he said.
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(News report from Issue No. 187, published on JUNE 4 2014)
MAY 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) -Japan and South Korea have agreed to lend Turkmenistan $2.5b to build a gas processing plant, media reported. Earlier in May it was announced that companies from Japan and South Korea had won a tender to build the plant. Over the past few years Turkmenistan has become a gas superpower.
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(News report from Issue No. 187, published on JUNE 4 2014)
MAY 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s parliament passed the first reading of a bill that will give a tax amnesty for people willing to repatriate cash held in offshore accounts.
The amnesty is designed to boost the size of the legal economy.
Ardak Tengebayev, deputy finance minister, said the plan would bring much needed cash into the Kazakh economy.
“We expect a turnover of 2 trillion tenge ($11b) and we hope that this sum will be reintroduced into the country’s economy,” he said
A similar amnesty in 2006-07 pulled in assets of $7b.
Not everybody, though, thought the amnesty was a good idea. Viktor Yambayev, chief of the Almaty Association of
Entrepreneurs, said the plan was designed to help only the country’s rich.
“This amnesty doesn’t affect the majority of the population. Instead, it benefits government employees, monopolist companies, extractive industries,” he told a Bulletin correspondent.
An amnesty may draw in some, much needed, cash into the Kazakh economy but another problem, the divide between the rich and poor, is intensifying.
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(News report from Issue No. 187, published on JUNE 4 2014)
JUNE 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s government is considering increasing electricity prices for the second year running.
Ara Simonyan, deputy minister for energy, made the omission after questions from parliamentarians who were trying to find out whether rumours of a price increase had any substance.
“The electricity tariffs are not frozen in Armenia and shall be reviewed from time to time. There is no certain decision at the moment,” he said.
Last year the state’s body for regulating electricity prices raised the cost of a kilowatt hour to 38 drams from 30 drams. Now, media has reported, the government is considering putting up prices by another 20% to around 45 drams.
This is important because rising utility prices stirs anger.
Armenians have already vented their frustration this year against proposed changes to the pension system, triggering the downfall of one government. The new government has said that it will look again at the proposed changes which would have meant that people have to put 5% of their income towards their state pension.
Mr Simonyan said hydroelectric stations were unusually dry last year meaning that less electricity was generated and that this meant prices had to rise.
Regardless, if the government does take the decision to increase electricity prices, it could generate public resentment.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 187, published on JUNE 4 2014)