MARCH 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan increased its exports of military equipment by 500% in 2013, media quoted a government report as saying. Azerbaijan has previously said that it wants to boost its arms manufacturing sector. It has invested much of its relatively recent oil wealth into its military.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
MARCH 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tbilisi’s city council voted through a 2014 budget after previously rejecting it twice. Passing the budget will allow stalled city projects to start again. The council is controlled by the Georgian Dream party; Former President Mikheil Saakashvili’s party controls the Tbilisi city hall, which submitted the original budget for approval.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
MARCH 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — It’s tough times for emerging market economies. Currencies are under pressure from an upturn in the US economy and Russia’s moves in Ukraine have made people nervous.
Azerbaijan, though, seems to be handling all this with aplomb with the successful launch of its inaugural $1.2b 10-year Eurobond.
Analysts said that orders came in for around 4b, making the issue more than three times over-subscribed.
The yield came in at around 5%, roughly 200 basis points over US treasures. This shows that investors feel that Azerbaijan is a relatively good bet at the moment — certainly better than other parts of the former Soviet Union which have been dented by the brewing crisis in Ukraine.
Although analysts have said that Azerbaijan does not need to issue the loan, it may have wanted to put a marker down for any future issues.
It will also help other companies from Azerbaijan gauge how easy, or difficult, it is to enter the debt market. The state-controlled International Bank of Azerbaijan said it may look to enter the debt market this year.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
MARCH 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — According to the Uzmetronom.uz website, many of the statistics published by the state agency are incorrect. It quoted independent economists saying that the government uses favourable data to inflate its achievements. Uzbekistan’s has been reporting a booming economy despite apparent stresses in the system.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
MARCH 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s government slapped a $735m fine on the consortium developing the Kashagan Caspian Sea oil field for environmental damage from burning off gas during repairs to a leak. The $50b Kashagan project sprung a gas leak in October, barely a month after production started.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
MARCH 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan has started a 500m euro project to transform an old Yugoslav navy base in Montenegro into a luxury resort. The construction of the resort is controversial because it is being bankrolled by Azerbaijan’s sate-owned oil company and Azmont Investments, a company with close links to the Azerbaijani elite.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
MARCH 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police at Tbilisi airport have arrested a fugitive Georgian warlord who promised to ignite a civil war in 2006 after fleeing the country, Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty reported.
Emzar Kvitsiani was arrested when he flew into Tbilisi after eight years in exile. He had once controlled the Kodori Gorge with his militia known as Monadire, which means hunter.
Under former President Eduard Shevardnazde, Mr Kvitsiani had been governor of the Kodori Gorge but had fallen out with Mikheil Saakashvili and his supporters when they came to power during the so-called Rose Revolution of 2003.
His militia was banned but Mr Kvitsiani had refused to give up his weapons. Eventually, in 2006, Georgian soldiers started operations in the Kodori Gorge to track Mr Kvitsiani down.
He fled with barely a shot being fired.
It’s unclear, with the consequences of returning evident, why Mr Kvitsiani would have chosen to return to Georgia.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
MARCH 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The IMF has approved a 38 month loan roughly equal to about $127m to support economic development in Armenia, media reported. Announcing the deal, media quoted Nemat Shafik, deputy managing director of the IMF, as saying that inflation and a large current account deficit were still a worry for Armenia.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
MARCH 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan hosted a meeting of the Caspian Sea littoral states’ fisheries organisations in Ashgabat on March 4 to discuss a draft agreement on exploiting the sea, media reported. The meeting is part of a series ahead of a summit in Astrakhan, Russia.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
MARCH 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Officials from Siemens and the German Energy Agency (DENA) met with Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon in Dushanbe to discuss potential cooperation in the sector, giving Tajikistan’s struggling domestic energy sector a potential boost.
Tajikistan relies mainly on hydropower stations to generate much of its power but Mr Rakhmon’s pet project, the Rogun station, lacks investment and has aggravated relations with downstream Uzbekistan, a major cotton-producer.
Every winter, and it gets cold in Tajikistan, villages across the country face rolling blackouts as electricity rationing is introduced.
Last year German-Tajik trade amounted to just under €40.3m, less than a tenth of German-Uzbek trade and dwarfed by German-Kazakh trade which reached over €6.5b.
Perhaps, though, with the visit by Siemens, this is about to change.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)