FEB. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek immigrants contributed around a third of the remittances sent from Russia between January 2010 and September 2013, media reported quoting Uzbekistan’s Central Bank. The Central Bank data underlines how dependent ordinary people in Uzbekistan are on cash sent home by Uzbeks working in Russia.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
MARCH 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Petrovietnam, Vietnam’s state-owned energy company, has agreed to buy 3.5m barrels of Azeri crude oil this year, it said in a statement. The deal is a significant success for Azerbaijan which is looking to extend its client base and its international standing.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
MARCH 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A religious council in Kyrgyzstan appointed Maksat Hajji Toktomushev as its seventh grand mufti in four years. Toktomushev is best known for issuing a fatwa against same-sex relations in January. His election highlights the issue of human rights in Kyrgyzstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
FEB. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh state-owned pipeline monopoly KazTransGaz agreed to take a $700m loan from the China Development Bank to build a second 311km gas pipeline from southern Kazakhstan to China. The loan highlights the dominance of Chinese finance and its hunger for gas in Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
FEB. 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan hopes that its long-delayed Caspian Sea oil field Kashagan will finally start producing oil in the second half of the year. Kazakh PM Serik Akhmetov said he hoped Kashagan, which cost $50b to build, would produce 3m tonnes of oil this year. A gas leak halted production last year.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
MARCH 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Lawmakers in Tajikistan’s lower house discussed the draft of a new law that investors hope will help them to do business in its emerging energy sector.
Tajikistan, dependent on fuel imports from Russia and unfriendly neighbour Uzbekistan, is desperate to unlock its own significant hydrocarbons potential. It hopes to both achieve energy security and earn much-needed revenue.
The problem is that the legislation appears unreformed and Byzantine even.
Although details of the law under discussion haven’t been released, it is understood that it is aimed at addressing these problems.
Russia’s Gazprom, Channel Islands-registered Tethys, France’s Total and China’s CNPC are all prospecting in Tajikistan, the latter trio joining forces to exploit the Bokhtar license area in the south-west of the republic which may hold over 3 trillion cubic metres of gas.
Neighbouring China will be the primary customer when — or perhaps at this stage that should still be an ‘if’ — Bokhtar starts gas production.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
MARCH 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmennebit, the Turkmen state-owned energy company, plans to increase exploration in the Caspian Sea after hitting oil in a handful of test wells, media reported. Over the past decade Turkmenistan has turned itself into a regional energy powerhouse.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
MARCH 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s som currency fell sharply in value against the US dollar. A Conway Bulletin correspondent in Bishkek reported that some banks had stopped selling US dollars and that black market traders were selling the Greenback at inflated prices.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
FEB. 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A new opposition party in Kyrgyzstan called the United National Opposition Movement (UNOM) launched itself in Bishkek with a relatively pro-West agenda. The UNOM said Kyrgyzstan should hold a national referendum before it joined the Russia-led Customs Union. Kazakhstan and Belarus are members of the Customs Union.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
FEB. 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — British bank HSBC agreed to sell its banking assets in Kazakhstan to Halyk Bank for $176m.
HSBC Kazakhstan employed about 600 people and operated six branches in the country.
The deal is important for two reasons. Although left unsaid, HSBC’s move out of Kazakhstan feels like a fairly damming verdict on the Kazakh economy. After all, HSBC spent 15 year working in Kazakhstan.
Perhaps Kazakhstan is not as rosy economically as government ministers would like the public to think.
Secondly, Halyk Bank, the purchaser of HSBC’s banking assets, is owned by the Dinara Nazarbayeva and Timur Kulibayev, the daughter and son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
HSBC has generally had a re-think across the globe on its banking strategy. It pulled out of Russia in 2011 after only two years.
For Halyk Bank, the deal is something of a coup. Halyk Bank refused to buy the government’s stake in debt-ridden BTA Bank at the end of 2013, showing its independent thinking.
For Kazakhstan’s banking sector, the deal marks another round in the consolidation process. It also leaves Citi as the only Western bank with a major presence. All eyes are now on Citi and how long it lasts.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)