Tag Archives: business

Bank opens ATM in Nagorno-Karabakh

DEC. 27 2020 (The Bulletin) — In a move heavily infused with symbolism, state-owned International Bank of Azerbaijan opened its first cash machine in Shusha, the largest town taken by Azerbaijani forces from Armenia during a six-week war for control of the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh that ended in November. Azerbaijani business has rushed to follow soldiers and open up operations in the region.

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— This story was first published in issue 467 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Trial begins of manslaughter over dam collapse

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DEC. 25 2020 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s Supreme Court began the trial for manslaughter through negligence of eight men who built and designed a dam in the north of the country that burst in 2020, flooding thousands of acres of farmland, forcing 70,000 people to flee their homes and killing six people. The case is being closely watched in Uzbekistan. Officials said that they suspected that corruption was partly to blame for the failure of the dam, which was finished in 2017.

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— This story was first published in issue 467 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

EBRD and World Bank lend for Uzbek solar project

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DEC. 23 2020 (The Bulletin) — The EBRD, the ADB and the World Bank agreed to lend the Uzbek government $125m to finance its first solar power project. The plant is being built in Uzbekistan’s industrial heartland in Navoi by Masdar, an Abdu Dhabi company and will produce 270 gigawatt hours of energy per year, which Bloomberg said was enough to power 31,000 households.

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— This story was first published in issue 467 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

The Caspian Sea is shrinking, warn scientists

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ALMATY/DEC. 23 2020 (The Bulletin) — The Caspian Sea, which provides a livelihood for thousands of people and acts as a fulcrum for international transit routes through the Central Asia and South Caucasus region, is shrinking, new scientific research showed (Dec. 23).

The report produced by universities in Germany and the Netherlands said that the Caspian Sea could lose up to a third of its water by 2100, with water level dropping by 18m, marooning previously important ports hundreds of kilometres inland.

The report’s authors said they wanted to use the threat to the Caspian Sea to highlight the dangers of global warming to inland seas and lakes.

“A massive warning signal is the projected catastrophic drop in water levels for the Caspian Sea, the largest lake in the world, which could hit stakeholders unprepared,” the report said.

Previous studies have warned that the Caspian Sea has been shrinking since the 1990s but not this quickly.

Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Azerbaijan border the Caspian Sea, which lies at the centre of a series of transport corridors that ultimately connect East Asia with Europe.

The Caspian Sea also hosts the region’s oil and gas industry and is a wildlife reserve, supporting seals, and migratory birds. The report showed how vast areas of the northern section of the Caspian Sea could dry up, with Atyrau in Kazakhstan effectively being stranded hundreds of kilometres from the shore.

Central Asia’s reputation for ecological disasters is already secure with the shrinking of the Aral Sea, which is shared by Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. It shrank in the 1960s and 1970s to half its original size because of Soviet schemes to siphon off its tributaries to irrigate cotton fields.

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— This story was first published in issue 467 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Carrefour opens first store in Uzbekistan

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TASHKENT/DEC. 22 2020 (The Bulletin) — Carrefour, the French hypermarket brand, opened its first store in Tashkent, part of a plan to open up seven in the Uzbek capital.

Majid Al Futtaim, the Dubai-based retail and leisure franchise operator, said that the store would offer Tashkent residents their first access to a major European supermarket brand and all its products.

“As one of the most recognised retail brands in the world, Carrefour introduces an elevated shopping experience to the Uzbek market through its international standards and retail best practices, customer service, and best in-store hygiene processes,” Majid Al Futtaim said in a statement.

The coronavirus pandemic, though, appears to have dented Majid Al Futtaim’s ambitions. In 2019, it promised to open four stores by the end of 2020 in Uzbekistan and another three by the end of 2021.

Majid Al Futtaim has opened Carrefour stores in Armenia, Georgia and Kazakhstan over the past few years. The Carrefour store in Almaty was closed in 2017, 15 months after it opened, because of a lack of interest from shoppers.

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— This story was first published in issue 467 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Tajikistan is facing most serious drought ever, says deputy PM

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DEC. 22 2020 (The Bulletin) — Davlatali Said, Tajikistan’s deputy PM, said that the country was facing the most serious drought on record. The statement was an unusually candid one by a senior member of the Tajik government on the water shortages in Tajikistan’s reservoirs that have dented power generation at its hydropower stations. Tajikistan is trying to set itself up as a major regional power exporter.

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— This story was first published in issue 467 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021

Georgia produced chemicals that exploded in Beirut

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TBILISI/AUG.4 (The Bulletin) — Rustavi Azot, Georgia’s largest industrial enterprise, has
been named as the producer in 2013 of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate
that has now exploded in Beirut, killing 145 people and damaging large
parts of the city.

Its management, backed up by Georgian ministers, though said that
the chemicals had been safe when it was loaded on to The Rhosus, a cargo
ship, in its Black Sea port of Batumi and that the fault for the explosion
lies with the authorities in Beirut.

“Rustavi Azot is one of the country’s largest exporter companies
and produces up to 1% of the world’s total ammonium nitrate
consumption,” it said. “The company produces, stores and exports its
products having required licenses and permissions and in compliance with
all applicable national and international standards.”

The Soviet-era plant near Tbilisi employs 2,000 people and is the only
ammonium nitrate producer in the South Caucasus. Over the past half a
decade, the Georgian government has promoted Rustavi Azot and talked up
its exports and in 2016, the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development led an international consortium of banks with a $155m
loan designed to help modernise the plant.

There had even been talk at the time of the EBRD taking a stake in
Rustavi Azot, although this does not appear to have materialised.
In its statement, Rustavi Azot was also careful to point out that new
management has been running the plant for the past three years and
shouldn’t be held responsible for previous deals.

But questions will still be asked as to how more than half the plant’s
annual production of ammonium nitrate in 2013 could be loaded onto
the Rhosus, which was sailing under the flag of landlocked Moldova and
was owned by Russian Igor Grechushkin.

Ammonium nitrate is mainly used as a fertiliser but can also be used to
produce cheap explosives and the Rhosus had been bound for an arms
factory in Mozambique when it was diverted to Beirut and its cargo impounded.

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— This story was first published in issue 456 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin on Aug. 9 2020

Kcell posts sales rise for H1

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JULY 30 (The Bulletin) — Kcell, Kazakhstan’s biggest mobile operator, said that sales increased by 7.7% in the first six months of the year, compared to the same time last year, despite the coronavirus pandemic.. It also said that net income was up by 17.8%. Results from Kcell, which is owned by the state-owned Kazakhtelecom, are watched as they are considered important indicators on the health of the Kazakh economy.

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— This story was published in issue 455 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 31 2020.

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Armenia approves Team’s takeover of Veon Armenia

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JULY 30 (The Bulletin) — Armenia’s Commission for the Regulation of Public Services has approved the takeover of Veon’s Armenian subsidiary by Team, a new telecoms operator, media reported. Team, which was only set up in April, said earlier in July that it had been given permission to buy Veon Armenia, which operates the valuable Beeline brand in the country. Ucom, another telecoms operator, has said that it will challenge the deal.

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— This story was published in issue 455 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 31 2020.

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

KAZ Minerals says that H1 copper output was higher than expected

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JULY 30 (The Bulletin) — KAZ Minerals, the Kazakhstan-focused and London-listed, copper producer said that output for the first half of the year was higher than expected. It said that copper production was up by 4% and that gold production was up by 25%. Importantly, it said that while the coronavirus pandemic had not disrupted its operations so far a second lockdown in Kazakhstan had “heightened risk”. Kazakhstan went into a second lockdown in early July.

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— This story was published in issue 455 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 31 2020.