APRIL 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s Central Bank said it had spent more than $1b of its reserves defending the value of the manat currency since it devalued by a third in mid-February. The admission will be an embarrassment for the Central Bank as the devaluation was meant to relieve pressure on the manat and protect reserves.
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(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
MARCH 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Lazio, a football team based in Rome, may sign a shirt sponsorship deal with Azerbaijan to carry its “Azerbaijan: Land of Fire” slogan, Azerbaijani websites reported quoting the national football association. Azerbaijan already sponsors Atletico Madrid.
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(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
MARCH 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Azerbaijan began the trial of six men accused of fighting with the extremist IS group in Syria, media reported. The men are part of a group of 26 people arrested last year.
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(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
MARCH 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Banks in Azerbaijan are passing on costs triggered by the devaluation of the manat to their clients, the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) said.
The most vulnerable are people who took out loans in foreign currencies before the devaluation.
IWPR quoted local media which attributed two suicides to the devaluation and the sudden increased cost of repaying debt.
It also suggested that the commercial banks have been breaking the law by making people pay back loans at the new, weaker, exchange rate.
The IWPR quoted a Supreme Court judge saying that banks should continue to charge consumers the rate they took the loan out originally.
Experts have warned Azerbaijan that it needs to reduce consumers’ debt burdens to ensure its economic security.
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(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
MARCH 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The number of asylum seekers from Azerbaijan to Europe is increasing, the United Nations said in a report on global trends.
The latest data from the UN showed that in the first quarter of 2014 641 people from Azerbaijan claimed asylum in Europe, compared to 572 people in the first quarter of 2013.
This is still below the numbers from Azerbaijan’s South Caucasus neighbours — Georgia and Armenia.
Independent observers in Azerbaijan have said that the main driver of asylum seekers — rather than the larger dynamic of economic migrants — is a crackdown by the Azerbaijani authorities on civic activists. Importantly, this has recently also included NGO leaders and journalists who feel persecuted by the authorities as well as opposition figures.
Alovsat Aliyev, head of the Azerbaijan Migration Centre, who has also left Baku to live in Berlin because he worried about persecution said the figures also represented a brain-drain for Azerbaijan.
“Not only do those who are persecuted leave the country, but these are also people who have high capacity of intelligence and don’t want to be part of corrupted system,” he told media.
Azerbaijani asylum seekers mostly use Georgia as a transition country, as it is considered safer than Iran, Turkey and Russia.
The United States the European Union have both called on Azerbaijan to stop its alleged crackdown on civil groups. Several US NGOs and the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty have quit Azerbaijan.
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(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
APRIL 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijani officials expelled a Georgian activist working for the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), media reported. The officials didn’t give any reason for expelling Georgi Gogia who had travelled to Baku to attend the trial of two activists. Relations between Azerbaijan and the West have worsened recently.
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(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
MARCH 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan has appointed the British subsidy of Fluor Corp., a US engineering company, to manage the $16.5b construction of a new oil, gas and petrochemical processing plant outside Baku, media reported.
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(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
MARCH 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan released two opposition activists from prison, part of an amnesty ordered by Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev. Orkhan Yeubzade, a youth activist, was arrested in October on drug related charges. Bashir Suleiman, head of an election watchdog, was convicted of hooliganism.
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(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)
MARCH 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Harvey Nichols, one of London’s most famous department stores, has opened a branch in Baku, media reported. The 7-storey store underlines Azerbaijan’s draw for luxury brands and cements its place as one of the region’s top shopping destinations.
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(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)
MARCH 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state energy company, said it will ask the Central Bank for a 1b manat ($925m) loan to build an oil, gas and petrochemicals plant. This is important because last year SOCAR delayed construction of the $16.5b plant because its funds had dried up.
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(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)