Tag Archives: Armenia

Fitch raises Armenian GDP

JAN. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Ratings agency Fitch said it forecasts GDP growth in Armenia of 2% in 2016. The agency also revised upwards its prediction on the final 2015 results. According to Fitch, Armenia grew by 2.7% in 2015, pushed up by a relatively positive trade balance. While imports fell sharply by 26% compared to 2014, exports only contracted by 1% in the same period.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)

Swine flu deaths rise in Armenia

JAN. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s health ministry said that 18 people had died in the past two months from the H1N1 strain of swine flu, media reported, up from an earlier death toll of 10. The health ministry denied that the deaths had reached epidemic proportions but neighbouring countries have also started to report deaths linked to swine flu.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)

Qatar expands routes to Armenia and Azerbaijan

JAN. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Qatar Airways, the country’s flagship airline, said it would expand its routes in the South Caucasus in Q1 and Q2 of 2016. The company announced the opening of a new Doha-Yerevan route from May 2016. Qatar Airways will fly four times a week to Armenia’s capital. The company also plans to expand from seven to eleven the weekly flights to Baku, from the end of March.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 265, published on Jan. 29 2016)

Editorial: Iran’s return

JAN. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – There is much excitement in our region over the emergence of Iran after over a decade of US-imposed sanctions.

New flight connections, new pipelines, new transmission lines and more is what a sanctions-free Iran could bring to the South Caucasus and Central Asia.

Iran has struck a deal with Air Astana to open the Almaty-Tehran air route. It has also revived talks with Turkmenistan about gas fields and pipelines around the Caspian.

Potentially, a new network to the east of the Caspian Sea could facilitate the European Union’s plans to import gas from the region. Azerbaijan may well be interested in such deals as well. In addition, Iran could become an important supplier of gas to both Armenia and Georgia.

On the flip side, Iran’s accession to the global oil market will undoubtedly drive the price of oil further down, it has huge oil reserves and production capacity, increasing the pressure on the budgets of oil-exporting economies in the region.

ENDS

Editorial from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

Armenia asks for gas price help

JAN. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia asked Gazprom to lower the prices of gas imports by 21% to $130 per thousand cubic metres to help it weather a fierce economic storm that has hit the region.

Media reported that Armenian gas consumers currently pay an excessive price for gas. Russia reduced the cost of gas sold to Armenia last year but the government didn’t pass that saving on to consumers. It now says that it’s time to give Armenian consumers a discount.

Last year, Armenians protested at a proposed increase in the price of electricity, giving the authorities a sharp reminder of their reputation for street-level politics.

In that instance the government backed down and avoided the price rises.

Armenia is a key Russian ally in the South Caucasus. The Russian military maintains a major base in Armenia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

Nordavia flies to Armenia

JAN. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian airline company Nordavia said it will open a regular flight from St. Petersburg to Yerevan. Nordavia previously only operated regular domestic flights in western Russia. According to the press statement, Nordavia will fly between St. Petersburg and Armenia’s capital three times a week.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

Armenia’s bank wants IPO

JAN. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s biggest bank Ameriabank said that it would seek an IPO in London within the next couple of years after the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) bought a stake in it. If Ameriabank did list in London it would be the first Armenian company to list on a Western stock market.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

Yerevan Jur to improve water supplies in Armenia

JAN. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Yerevan Jur, a French company managing the water network in Armenia’s capital, said it has launched a new $21.6m programme to improve water supplies. Veolia, a French utilities company listed in New York and Paris, established Yerevan Jur in 2006. International lenders, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, will finance the water network project.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

First Armenian leader gets ill

JAN. 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Levon Ter-Petrosyan, the first leader of post-Soviet Armenia, has been flown to the United States for emergency treatment on what local media have described as a cancer. Mr Ter-Petrosyan, 71, was president of Armenia between 1991 and 1998. He has since become a vocal opponent of the government and was blamed for whipping up street protests in 2008 that culminated in police shooting dead at least 10 people.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

Armenia’s Ameriabank aims for London IPO within 2 or 3 years

JAN. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Ameriabank, Armenia’s largest bank, said it wants to list its shares on the London stock exchange, after it received an investment of around $100m from international lenders, including the EBRD and the World Bank’s IFC.

If Ameriabank does list on LSE, it would be the first Armenian bank, or company even, to be publicly traded on a Western stock exchange. In the South Caucasus it would be the second publicly traded bank after Bank of Georgia.

Ameriabank’s chairman Andrew Mkrtchyan said the bank plans an IPO in the next two or three years.

“Our aspiration is an IPO (initial public offering) and to try to triple our balance sheet in the next three years,” Mr Mkrtchyan told Reuters.

The EBRD said it paid $30m for an equity stake of around 20% in Ameriabank and has pledged an additional $10m for the bank’s asset growth.

“This is the largest single-ticket equity deal the EBRD has signed in the region to date,” the EBRD said in a statement.

By becoming a shareholder, the EBRD has committed to growing the bank in Armenia.

“As a shareholder the EBRD will support Ameriabank’s development, with a special emphasis on corporate governance,” Mark Davis, head of the EBRD Yerevan office, said.

The World Bank’s IFC also provided Ameriabank with a $50m loan to increase its lending capacity.

For Armenia, the investments by the EBRD and the IFC are a vote of confidence in its banking sector and are especially important at a time when currencies and economies in the region are depreciating or falling back on earlier growth spurts.

For foreign investors, an Ameriabank IPO would give them a chance to buy into an Armenian corporation for the first time.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)