Tag Archives: automobiles

Kazakh President’s nephew to invest in car-making

JUNE 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kairat Satybaldy, the eldest nephew of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, and Vyacheslav Kim, both linked to Kaspi Bank, one of Kazakhstan’s most prominent high street banks, bought into AllurGroup, a carmaker with its main operations in Kostanai, in the north of the country. Through Alatau Invest Capital, a financial vehicle, Mr Satybaldy has said he wants to invest in the car-making industry.

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(News report from Issue No. 284, published on June 10 2016)

Hyundai sells buses to Turkmenistan

JUNE 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — South Korean automaker Hyundai said it has sold 500 Aero City buses to Turkmenistan, for $66m. Hyundai has already sold 700 buses to Turkmenistan over the past seven years. The new buses will mostly service the capital, Ashgabat, during the Asian Indoors Games in 2017.

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(News report from Issue No. 284, published on June 10 2016)

GM Uzbekistan to produce new model car

MAY 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Car manufacturer GM Uzbekistan will produce a new model of Chevrolet Aveo cars for both the domestic market and exports to Russia, state-owned Uzavtoprom said. GM Uzbekistan, 75% owned by Uzavtoprom and 25% owned by US- based GM, said production of the new model will cost around $100m and its Uzbek plant will manufacture 73,600 cars/year. GM Uzbekistan is an important part of the Uzbek economy as it is one of its biggest JVs outside oil and gas.

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(News report from Issue No. 283, published on June 3 2016)

Turkmenistan to import S Korean buses

MAY 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan will import South Korea-made passenger buses, in an effort to boost economic cooperation. President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and Kim Wee- Chul, CEO Hyundai Engineering, signed the agreement in Ashgabat. In 2013, Hyundai Engineering had completed construction work at a processing plant near Galkynysh, the largest gas field in the country.

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(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)

GM Uzbekistan to stop selling cars to Russia

MAY 24 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Life.ru, a Russian newspaper, said that GM Uzbekistan might soon stop selling its cars to Russia, as the company’s distributor in Voronezh is on the brink of bankruptcy. GM Uzbekistan, a joint venture between US-based GM and state owned UzAvtosanoat, faced problems last month, when a corruption case hit its top managers and slowed car exports to Russia. It is one of the most important industrial units in Uzbekistan outside the oil and gas sector.

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(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)

Uzbek authorities investigate GM

MAY 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A GM Uzbekistan executive in Russia said that the authorities in Uzbekistan had opened an investigation into the company for losses incurred by its Russian division.

Yelena Kuznetsova, director of marketing at the Russian representative office for Ravon, GM Uzbekistan’s brand in Russia, refused to confirm to Reuters, though, whether a news report on the opposition website Uzmetronom that police had detained an executive at

“The company (GM Uzbekistan) is being investigated because the Russian distributor was unable to repay its debt,” she said.

An earlier report by Uzmetronom said police had detained Tokhirjon Jalilov, the former GM Uzbekistan CEO, for a scam involving Ravon cars bound for Russia.

GM Uzbekistan is one of the country’s most important joint ventures. The Uzbek government owns a 75% stake in the project. GM owns a 25% stake.

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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

GM Uzbekistan’s car sales to Russia fall in April

MAY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Sales of GM Uzbekistan’s cars to Russia fell 5% in April compared to the same month last year, dashing hopes raised last month that sales were starting to improve.

Russia is GM Uzbekistan’s biggest market, leaving it badly exposed to a Russian economic recession.

Car sales to Russia had started to pick up in February and March for GM Uzbekistan, a joint venture between US-based GM and state owned UzAvtosanoat, raising hopes that the worst of the economic down- turn had been weathered.

But data from the Moscow-based Association of European Businesses (AEB), which publishes monthly sales numbers in Russia, said GM Uzbekistan had sold just 1,571 units in April, down from 1,677 in March. As a comparison, this is around a third of the sales number of the same month in 2012.

Joerg Schreiber, AEB chairman said, that the outlook wasn’t any better.

“The volume of absolute sales [in Russia] has fallen to the lowest level in 10 years,” he said in a statement.

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(News report from Issue No. 280, published on May 13 2016)

Uzbek Police arrest GM Uzbekistan director

MAY 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek police arrested Tokhirzhon Zhalilov, described by media as the managing director of GM Uzbekistan, and accused him of faking exports to Russia.

Mr Zhalilov, together with other officials, allegedly masterminded a scheme to send cars booked for export to Russia to Shymkent, a city in Kazakhstan near the border with Uzbekistan. Instead of being shipped on to Russia, these cars were sent back to Uzbekistan and re-sold. This, according to sources at Uzbekistan’s state-owned car-maker quoted by the Uzbek service of RFE/RL, allowed Mr Zhalilov to amass illicit funds, which he then hid offshore.

The Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta said that, despite promises made earlier this year, GM Uzbekistan had failed to deliver shipments of its new Ravon model by the end of April.

So far, only the US-funded RFE/RL and Rossiyskaya Gazeta have reported the alleged arrest. Uzbekistan’s prosecutor, also, has not confirmed Mr Zhalilov’s arrest.

GM Uzbekistan is a joint venture between US-based GM and state ownedUzavtosanoat.

It is one of the largest car producers in Central Asia and one of Uzbekistan’s largest industrial units.

It mainly exports to Russia.

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(News report from Issue No. 279, published on May 6 2016)

EBRD invests in Kazakh trucks

APRIL 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The EBRD paid €3.3m ($3.8) to become a shareholder in Globaltruck Kazakhstan, a truck operating group. Globaltruck is registered in Cyprus and owns Longrun Asia a start-up trucking company in Kazakhstan. Longrun Asia will use Globaltruck’s equity funds of €10m ($11.4m) to buy up to 300 trucks and trailers.

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(News report from Issue No. 278, published on April 29 2016)

Car and oil imports drop in Armenia

APRIL 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A regional economic downturn has dented Armenia’s imports in 2015, data from the state Statistics Committee showed. Car imports shrank by 38% to 27,300 last year, compared to 2014. Oil imports shrank by 8%. A region-wide currency crisis has affected purchasing power in the South Caucasus and Armenia’s trade numbers reflect this.

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(News report from Issue No. 277, published on April 22 2016)