MAY 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Looking to boost production in the long run, Turkmenistan’s government said it would set up a state commission to improve the growing and transportation of cereal crops, media reported. Turkmenistan has grown increasingly rich from its gas exports. Cereal crop production has also grown.
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(News report from Issue No. 186, published on May 28 2014)
MAY 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia has confirmed that it will send 12 more heavy tanks to Azerbaijan, media reported, part of a major arms deal between the two countries. The deal will cause consternation in Armenia, which views Russia as its main ally and Azerbaijan as its biggest foe.
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(News report from Issue No. 186, published on May 28 2014)
MAY 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Throwing the gauntlet down to his Turkish counterpart, Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan invited Turkey’s president to commemorate the 100th anniversary of what Armenia calls the genocide of its people by Ottoman Turks next year. Turkey denies the charges and instead says people were killed during inter-ethnic fighting.
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(News report from Issue No. 186, published on May 28 2014)
MAY 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – TBC Bank is aiming to be the second Georgian company to list on the stock exchange in London. It named a price range for its shares at its proposed IPO at the end of June of between $13 and $16.
This is an important IPO for Georgia and the wider former Soviet Union. For Georgia, TBC Bank will be the first IPO since the end of Mikheil Saakashvili’s era as president. For the wider former Soviet Union, it will test investors’ appetite for buying into the region while the conflict in Ukraine appears to be worsening.
Rival Bank of Georgia floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2006 and is now part of the FTSE-250.
TBC Bank, valued at nearly $800m, aims to float around 50% of its stock in the IPO. It is the biggest bank in Georgia in terms of retail deposits, with a 33% share of the market.
The TBC floatation will also be a test of how investors view the Georgian economy. It has improved over the last year, partly because relations with Russia have improved, but there are still plenty of weaknesses. Inflation is still stubbornly low and direct foreign investment, so important, is taking some time to pick up again.
Still, with the South Caucasus’ status as a transit region for cargo and energy products between the Caspian Sea and Europe growing, Georgia has experienced an economic re-bound.
The TBC IPO at the end of June will be a good indication of how investors feel about the region.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 186, published on May 28 2014)
MAY 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The consortium of companies developing the second phase of the Shah Deniz gas field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea handed out another major contract.
This time it was a $735m contract to build two sections of a pipeline that will pump gas to Europe. This is an important project both for Azerbaijan and for Europe which is looking to reduce its dependency on Russia for energy.
A joint bid by Azeri firm Azfen and Amsterdam-based Saipem Contracting Netherlands BV won the contract to build a 428km pipeline between Azerbaijan and Georgia and a second 59km pipeline in Georgia.
Earlier this year the BP-led consortium developing Shah Deniz II, as the second phase of the development is known, handed out contracts worth billions of dollars, including also to Saipem, an Italian oil and gas services company.
And there promises to be plenty more multi-million- dollar contracts. Shah Deniz II is one of the biggest infrastructure projects in the world. Its entire cost is estimated at $28b.
Reuters quoted Gordon Birrell, BP’s president for the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey region as saying that the development of the South Caucasus Pipeline Expansion was on schedule.
Most of the contracts are due for completion by 2017, with first gas scheduled for a year later.
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(News report from Issue No. 186, published on May 28 2014)
May 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan plans to produce 75b cubic metres of gas this year, up from 70bcm last year, a senior official told Reuters on the sidelines of the annual gas conference in the Caspian Sea resort of Avaza. Turkmenistan has been boosting its output to hit increased demand.
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(News report from Issue No. 185, published on May 21 2014)
May 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian Orthodox groups rallied in Tbilisi against a new law designed to protect same-sex relationships. Media estimated that there were several hundred people at the rally, underlining the conservative nature of Georgian society. The Georgian Orthodox Church retains a lot of power in Georgia.
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(News report from Issue No. 185, published on May 21 2014)
May 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The International Rugby Board (IRB) has accepted Uzbekistan’s rugby association as a full member, media reported. Rugby is in its infancy in Uzbekistan but the IRB has said that it is committed to spread it across Asia. Neighbouring Kazakhstan is already an IRB member.
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(News report from Issue No. 185, published on May 21 2014)
May 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia will start building a deep water port on its Black Sea coast to cope with an expected surge in cargo being transported across the South Caucasus and on to Europe.
Georgian PM Irakli Garibshvili appeared to slip in news of the planned construction, almost casually, during comments he made at a Georgia-France business forum.
“We expect that Georgia’s demand for transport and logistics will increase,” the Trend news agency quoted Mr Garibashvili as saying.
“Therefore, we have decided to construct a deep-sea port in the Black Sea (Anaklia), to better serve the rapidly growing business in transportation and warehousing sectors.”
There has been something of an infrastructure boom across the South Caucasus.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline pumps oil from the Caspian Sea to Turkey, generating revenue for the transit countries and plans for more pipelines will also push up earnings.
What Mr Garibashvili was talking about though is physical cargo transported from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea. Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey have combined to modernise the co-called Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway. This is predominantly a trade route used to transit goods. Although it doesn’t finish in Anaklia it will still benefit the port town just north of Poti.
Increased trade across the South Caucasus is set to give Georgian industry a much needed boost.
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(News report from Issue No. 185, published on May 21 2014)
May 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The European Commission pledged to give 30m euros of financial aid to Georgia, media reported.European Council president, Herman Van Rompuy, made the declaration on a trip to Tbilisi. The EU and NATO have been trying to assure Georgia of its support since Russia’s de facto annexation of Crimea from Ukraine earlier this year.