MAY 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The EBRD is ready to issue a manat- denominated bond to help de-dollarise Azerbaijan’s economy, the Bank’s President, Sir Suma Chakra- barti, said. While the amount of the issue was not disclosed, Sir Suma said the bond will be sold within Azerbaijan to boost the local currency’s credibility.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)
MAY 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — It’s not yet clear whether SOCAR is now more downbeat or down-to-earth. The Azerbaijani state oil company has closed representative offices in three countries this week and is selling a stake in a petrochemical complex in Turkey. Cost-cutting, it seems, is high on the agenda as sustained low oil prices have hit revenues and hindered production growth.
But this week SOCAR has shown its bullish side as well. As we report in the Business News BP and SOCAR signed an agreement to jointly develop an offshore oil field. SOCAR also committed to building a new refinery in Georgia, a hub for Azerbaijani oil destined for customers in the West.
On the markets there is no sign that global oil prices, which nudged above $50/barrel for the first time this year on May 26, will shoot up again anytime soon.
SOCAR’s conservative approach to lavish spending on shiny offices around the world and its bullish plans for exploration and refining show that the company believes that the worst times are over, or nearly over, and it’s now time to look forward.
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(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)
MAY 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state oil company, said one of its Turkish subsid- iaries wants to sell its 5.32% stake in the Turkish oil and chemical complex Petkim for 70.9m lira ($33m) according to Bloomberg. In March, Socar Turkey Enerji reduced its ownership in Petkim from 8.07% to 5.32%. SOCAR Turkey Petrokimya still owns a 51% stake in Petkim.
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(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)
MAY 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan-based miner Anglo Asian posted a record production year in 2015, mining 72,000 ounces of gold, a 19% increase compared to 2014. The company’s revenues also grew by 15%, despite lower gold prices. Anglo Asian said it plans to produce even more gold in 2016 and plans to cut costs further thanks to the depreciation of the manat currency at the end of last year.
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(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)
MAY 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Ratings agency Moody’s said that a number of Azerbaijani banks could soon default, on the same day that the government said the country’s largest lender had piled up an unsustainable amount of bad assets, painting a bleak picture for the country’s financial sector.
Problem loans and liquidity issues have dented the financial health of Azerbaijani banks since the Central Bank decided to float the manat currency against the US dollar, triggering a sharp depreciation in December last year.
“Several banks with B3 rating have high risk of default,” Petr Paklin, analyst at Moody’s Financial Institutions Group was quoted as saying.
Moody’s downgraded Bank of Baku, Unibank and Xalq Bank to B3 in January and it is now saying that these could default. All three are among Azerbaijan’s 10-largest lenders.
The country’s biggest bank, the International Bank of Azerbaijan, amassed overdue loans and other toxic assets over the past few months at such a rate that it triggered a comment, and possible help, from the government.
“The cleaning process of toxic assets from IBA’s balance sheet is underway,” Samir Sharifov, Azerbaijan’s finance minister told local media on May 20.
IBA has not yet published the latest figures on the share of non- performing loans in its portfolio, but analysts believe it is well above the 12% previously reported. Notably, IBA holds around half of all loans in the country.
Azerbaijan’s government, as IBA’s largest shareholder with a 54.9% stake, could decide to write-off overdue loans, effectively bailing it out. Clearly, Azerbaijan’s financial sector has suffered from the sustained low oil prices and the sharp depreciation of the manat. The downturn has hit customers, who have been unable to pay back their loans.
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(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)
MAY 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — During a trip to Azerbaijan, EBRD President, Sir Suma Chakrabarti, confirmed that the Bank is considering a €1.5b ($1.7b) loan to the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), part of the Southern Gas Corridor network that will pump gas from Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea fields to Europe (May 25). Sir Suma also said the Bank is considering co-financing the TANAP pipeline, which will run from Azerbaijan through Turkey to Greece, where it will joint TAP.
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(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)
MAY 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The de-facto government of the Nagorno-Karabakh breakaway region said one soldier of the Armenia-backed NKR Defence Army was killed by Azerbaijani fire. This is the first death in the disputed region since Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan met in Vienna in mid-May to strengthen the ceasefire.
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(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)
MAY 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s state-owned railway company signed an agreement with German logistics giant DHL to establish a hub in Azerbaijan to service Turkey, Russia and Europe with goods coming from China. Azerbaijan Railways’ representative Nadir Azmammadov met with a DHL delegation in Istanbul.
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(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)
MAY 22/23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Chinese President Xi Jingping will make his first visit to Azerbaijan later this year, a major boost for Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev who has appeared an increasingly fringe figure on the international stage after the arrests of dozens of critics and the outbreak of violence in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Six months after Mr Aliyev visited Beijing, a delegation from China, led by Presidential Special Envoy Meng Jianzhu, arrived in Baku to prepare the way for Mr Xi.
It will be his first visit to the South Caucasus, underlining China’s interest in the region.
During the meeting with President Aliyev on May 22, Mr Meng reiterated his country’s interest to expand ties with Azerbaijan, particularly in law enforcement, security and cyber crime. The following day, Azerbaijan and China signed a memorandum of cooperation in the security sector.
Zohrab Ismayilov, an Azerbaijani independent economist and analyst, told the Conway Bulletin that Mr Aliyev has grown increasingly interested in China as Azerbaijan’s economy has been hard hit following the sharp drop in oil prices.
“Mr Aliyev is trying to find a third reliable partner and continues to manoeuvre between Russia and the West,” he said.
“Also, the government assumes that Chinese investments will be politically less risky than investments from Moscow or the West as Beijing does not have a strong geopolitical interest in the region.”
China became one of Azerbaijan’s top ten trading partners for the first time in 2015 with trade worth $565m. This compares to $2.8b of trade with Russia, its top partner.
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(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)
MAY 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Supreme Court in Azerbaijan unexpectedly freed investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova from prison, marking a major victory for human rights and free speech activists.
Ms Ismayilova was the most high- profile journalist imprisoned in Azerbaijan over the last few years in a crackdown by the authorities on the media and opposition activists. She had worked for the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, hosted a popular radio programme and reported on corruption allegations against President Ilham Aliyev.
The Supreme Court scrapped charges against Ms Ismayilova for misappropriation of property and abuse of power but upheld other charges of tax evasion and illegal entrepreneurship. Importantly it reduced the original sentence of 7-1⁄2 years handed down in September 2015 to a 3-1⁄2 year suspended sentence. Ms Ismayilova had been arrested and imprisoned since December 2014.
Wearing a huge smile, Ms Ismayilova emerged from her prison in Baku, to face the media. She was as defiant as ever.
“My arrest was solely for political reasons as President Aliyev and his clique wanted to get rid of any criticism against them,” she said.
Later, in an interview with RFE/RL, Ms Ismayilova said that she would continue to work as an investigative journalist. The authorities, though, have said that Ms Ismayilova is not allowed to work as a journalist during her suspended sentence.
The Azerbaijani authorities appear to have had a change of heart regarding dozens of activists they have arrested over the past few years. They allowed human rights activists Arif and Leyla Yunus to leave the country earlier this month and in March gave amnesty to a dozen or so activists.
An economic downturn, triggered by a collapse in oil prices has hit Azerbaijan hard. Observers said the authorities in Azerbaijan may have decided to back down over the West’s demands to relax their hardline approach in favour of improved ties.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)