JAN. 3 (The Conway Bulletin) — The trial in Almaty began of two men accused of killing Kazakh Olympic figure skater Denis Tan. He was stabbed to death after lunch in July 2018 when he disturbed the men trying to steal the wing mirrors off his car in the city centre. Tan, 25-years-old when he was killed, won bronze at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games.
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>>This story was first published in issue 396 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 11 2019
TASHKENT/JAN. 7 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan will throw open its doors to millions of more potential tourists from Feb. 1 after the government decreed that citizens of 45 developed countries can enter without a visa.
By scrapping visa requirements Uzbekistan hopes to give tourism a major boost and also to signal that the country is open for foreign investors. It also comes less than a week after Uzbekistan dropped exit visas for its citizens, a move set into motion by a decree signed by Pres. Shavkat Mirziyoyev in 2017.
Mr Mirziyoyev has been Uzbekistan’s president since September 2016 when he took over from the reclusive and authoritarian Islam Karimov. Karimov had ruled for 25 years since the breakup of the Soviet Union until a heart attack killed him. Under Karimov, Uzbekistan had been closed off and it had been difficult and expensive for both tourists and people on business trips to get visas.
Citizens from a handful of countries, including Russia and other Former Soviet countries had already had visa-free access to Uzbekistan. That has now been extended to include European countries, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and Brazil.
Israelis, Indonesians, Japanese, Malaysians, South Koreans, Turks and citizens of Singapore were given visa-free access in 2018.
Last year, Uzbekistan attracted 5.3m tourists, up from 2.6m in 2017. That number is now expected to boom with tourists flocking to see fabled sights such as the Registan in Samarkand and Bukhara, regarded as the best-preserved of the old khanate towns.
Tour operators welcomed the removal of the visa system although there were also words of caution.
Caroline Eden, co-author of the travel and cookbook Samarkand, said excessive development will backfire.
“The risk is that the infrastructure will not cope. Sites at Bukhara and Samarkand are so precious that a steady and measured approach would be wisest.,” She said.
“A rush to build hotels, little trains around monuments and too many tour buses will ruin the very appeal of this marvellous country.”
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>>This story was first published in issue 396 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 11 2019
JAN. 1 (The Conway Bulletin) — MTS, the Russian telecoms company, said it had started to pack up equipment in Turkmenistan, suggesting that it doubts it will ever be able to repair relations with the Turkmen government which switched off access to its network in Sept. 2017. MTS has filed a legal case against the Turkmen government for lost profit. Turkmenistan had suspended MTS’ operations previously in 2010 but 18 months later agreed to allow the Russian company to resume trading.
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>>This story was first published in issue 396 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 11 2019
DEC. 25/16 The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia and Azerbaijan both left their interest rates unchanged because of continued low inflation. Weak inflation has been a factor across the region since it recovered from a 2014-17 economic downturn.
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>>This story was first published in issue 396 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 11 2019
YEREVAN/JAN. 1 (The Conway Bulletin) — After a week of failed negotiations, Russian oil and gas monopoly increased the price of gas that it sells to Armenia by 10%, a move many analysts interpreted as an economic slap on the wrist by the Kremlin to Armenia’s pro-Western government.
In response, Nikol Pashinyan, Armenia’s leader, said that he was going to intensify negotiations with Iran over increasing gas imports.
“The issue of Iranian gas deliveries is always on the agenda. We will keep discussing this matter until we find a practical and advantageous solution,” Russian news agencies quoted Mr Pashinyan as saying.
He had been in Moscow on Dec. 27 to try to negotiate down the gas price rise, so the Russian statement that it was intent on increasing prices will come be seen as a personal sleight.
Gazprom said that from Jan. 1 2019, Armenia would pay $165 per 1,000 cubic metres of gas, up from $150.
Since taking over as Armenia’s PM after a peaceful revolution in April and May 2018, Mr Pashinyan has had a strained relationship with Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has been a frequent visitor to the Kremlin, has pushed for greater integration with Russia and has also sent a handful of de-miners and doctors to support Russia’s reconstruction efforts in Syria.
But his natural inclination is to lean to the West and his supporters are even more pro-Western. Last year, police in Armenia arrested several former senior pro-Russia Armenian government officials, including former President Robert Kocharyan and the head of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation, Yuri Khachaturov, and charged them with abuse of power over the shooting dead of anti-government protesters in 2008.
Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has said that the charges against the former senior Armenian officials are politically motivated.
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>>This story was first published in issue 396 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 11 2019
DEC. 26 (The Conway Bulletin) — Platts the energy-specialist news service said it expected oil output at Azerbaijan’s Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) Caspian Sea field to continue to decline in 2019. ACG is critical to Azerbaijan’s oil production but has been on the decline for the past eight years or so despite BP, its operator, spending millions of dollars patching up its ageing infrastructure. Platts said it expected ACG to produce 510,000 barrels of oil per day in 2019, down from 530,000bpd in 2018.
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>>This story was first published in issue 396 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 11 2019
DEC. 24 (The Conway Bulletin) — Lydian International, the Colorado-based miner, said its three main creditors had agreed to suspend debt repayments until it had revolved a dispute in Armenia that has blocked access to the Amulsar gold mine that it is developing. Orion, Resource Capital Fund and Osisko Bermuda have also made available an extra $18.56m to finance the company during this period. In December, Lydian appealed against a block on construction work at Amulsar, imposed because of the discovery of endangered birds.
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>>This story was first published in issue 396 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 11 2019
DEC. 20 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in London ruled that International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) couldn’t block its creditors from trying to recover fees and assets lost during its 2017 debt restructuring. The appeal against the IBA injunction was brought by Russia’s Sberbank, which had lent IBA $20m, and asset manager Franklin Templeton, which held IBA debt. Both companies had opposed the $3.3b restructuring deal by the state-owned bank.
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>>This story was first published in issue 395 of The Conway Bulletin on Dec. 23 2018
DEC. 20 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan aim to create a so-called “Silk Visa” next year that will allow foreigners to visit both countries, Acting First Deputy Chairman of the Uzbek State Committee for Tourism, Ulugbek Qosimhojaev, told reporters in Tashkent. Mr Qosimhojaev said that the aim was to boost tourism. Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan and Turkey were also reportedly interested in the project.
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>>This story was first published in issue 395 of The Conway Bulletin on Dec. 23 2018
DEC. 17 (The Conway Bulletin) – Defeated Georgian presidential candidate Grigol Vashadze of the United National Movement party (UNM) reiterated his call for supporters to continue to protest daily against what he has described as a “stolen election”. Mr Vashadze, a former foreign minister, lost to Salome Zurabishvili in the second round of a presidential election last month, polling 40% of the vote compared to her 60%. His supporters accuse Georgia’s richest man, Bidzina Ivanishvili, of bribing the electorate to support Ms Zurabishvili, his preferred candidate.
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>>This story was first published in issue 395 of The Conway Bulletin on Dec. 23 2018