Tag Archives: business

Kazakhstan’s gas distributor loses revenue

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s gas distributor Kaz- TransGas Aimak lost around 124b tenge ($365m) in 2015 selling gas on the domestic market because the government insisted that it keeps prices down. “Every year we incur losses because the wholesale price is kept below production and transport cost, but we make up for the losses in other departments, such as transit and exports,” the company’s CEO Ibulla Serdiyev said in a statement. KazTransGas Aimak is a subsidiary of state-owned Kazmunaigas.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Armenia’s power production rises

MARCH 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s electricity production grew by almost 9% in February compared to the same period last year, pushed up again by the proliferation of small hydropower stations. For the first two months of 2016, electricity generation grew by 7% to 1.3b kWh. The Metsamor nuclear power plant accounted for 42% of the total power generation in the country. Power generation has become big business in the South Caucasus, with countries trying to meet a jump in demand.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Les Copains opens shop in Kazakhstan

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Italian retailer Les Copains, luxury handbags, opened its first shop in Kazakhstan. The new boutique will be located in the Esentai Mall, Almaty’s luxury shopping centre. Earlier, the company had opened shops in Moscow. Les Copains said it is looking to expand further in Asia and in the former Soviet Union.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)

Armenia receives Russian PM

MARCH 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenian PM Hovik Abrahamyan hinted that a final decision on the long-running negotiations with Russia over gas prices would be made when Russian PM Dmitri Medvedev visits Yerevan next month. Armenia imports all its gas from Russia, one of its most important allies, and has asked for a cut in price to help it cope with an economic downturn. Russia has agreed a cut but not as drastic as Armenia had wanted.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to sign TASIM

MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan are close to signing a deal on the so called Trans-Eurasian Information Super Highway (TASIM) that aims to lay a superfast broadband cable linking Europe and Asia, media reported. The Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan deal aims to span the Caspian Sea.

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Editorial: Azerbaijan’s pardon

MARCH 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – In the past weeks, European Union representatives had said soothing, nice words to Azerbaijan’s leadership, especially in light of its key participation in the Southern Gas Corridor infrastructure complex, which will bring Caspian Sea gas to Europe by 2019.

Human rights advocates in the West had lobbied loudly for a hardline position regarding the government’s crackdown on political freedoms.

But the EU chose to avoid the critical topic and went on talking business.

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev’s decision to free some political prisoners must be read as a payment in kind to the EU’s soft hand on human rights.

While welcoming the gesture, people in Azerbaijan are still waiting for the release of Ilgar Mammadov, Khadija Ismayilova and Intigam Aliyev, three political prisoners that were not pardoned.

By pardoning political prisoners, the government is holding out an olive branch towards the West, more than towards domestic actors. The struggle for them, for independent media and for opposition parties, is not over just yet.

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Editorial from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Kazakhstan ratifies EU trade deal

MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s Senate ratified a trade deal with the European Union which Kazakh foreign minister Yerlan Idrissov said had far reaching implications. Mr Idrissov said: “The most important part of the new treaty is the trade section, which offers additional guarantees of stability to our European partners and will help raise Kazakhstan’s investment appeal.”

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

BA cuts UK- Azerbaijan route as demand falls

MARCH 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – British Airways will cut its route to Baku from April 29 because it has become unprofitable, another indication of the severity of the economic downturn that has hit Central Asia and the South Caucasus in general and Azerbaijan in particular.

Baku is BP’s major regional hub and British Airways had been flying six times a week direct to Baku from Heathrow. Its decision to cut the route, which has been serviced by a British airline since 1995, further cuts the region off from Europe.

Over the past three years, British Airways has cut routes to Bishkek, Tbilisi and Almaty. By stopping flights to Baku it pulls back from the region altogether.

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Armenian Orange rebrands

MARCH 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Orange Armenia, one of the players in the country’s telecoms market, is preparing to rebrand to adjust its identity to Ucom, the fibre optic cable company that bought it last September. Ucom’s green colours will soon replace Orange’s trademark tone. France’s Orange previously owned Orange Armenia.

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(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)

Kazakhstan’s energy firm schedules Kashagan work

MARCH 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazmunaigas, Kazakhstan’s state- owned energy firm, said work at the Kashagan offshore oil field is on schedule and it expects the field to be ready for production by October 2016. Kazmunaigas’ CEO Sauat Mynbayev said he is still unsure about the volumes that Kashagan will produce in November-December 2016. The consortium developing Kashagan, which includes Kazmunaigas, Shell, Exxon, Total, Eni, Inpex and CNPC, has been replacing damaged pipes.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 272, published on March 18 2016)