OCT. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan said construction of the TAPI pipeline that will, it is hoped, pump gas from fields in the east of the country to consumers in India would start in 2016. Earlier this year, Turkmenistan had pushed for TAPI to start by the end of 2015. TAPI is a $10b project that will cross Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)
OCT. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Nurbek Elbayev, director of the Kyrgyz energy regulatory agency, said electricity tariffs will rise sharply over the next two years. The regulator will impose a 21% increase in August 2016 and a 29% rise in 2017. Electricity prices have risen across the region, triggering civil unrest.
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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)
OCT. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan produced 31.4m tonnes of oil in the first nine months of the year, around 3% more than had originally been expected, media reported quoting the state oil and gas company. This will be a relief for Azerbaijan’s government which relies on oil for its main revenue.
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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)
OCT. 23 2015, DUSHANBE (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Tajikistan plan to demolish some of Dushanbe’s most striking buildings to make way for new developments, infuriating many people.
Specifically, city planners are eyeing up the Rohat teahouse — a tourist destination — two theatres, the former presidential administration and the current parliament building for demolition. All of the buildings lie on prime real estate in the city centre and were built during the early Soviet period.
Nurali Saidzoda, deputy head of architecture and construction committee, told Tajik media last week that the buildings selected for demolition are not unique.
“If you had seen the blueprints of what will be built in their places, you would say the same,” he said.
The Tajik authorities appear to have something of a fad for large construction projects and grandiose design. Over the past few years they have built the biggest library, biggest teahouse, and biggest mosque in the region.
But not everybody was happy. Grassroots activism is rare in Tajikistan but, even so, hundreds of people signed an online petition calling for the demolition to be scrapped.
Fotima, an old woman walking in central Dushanbe, said she was concerned about the future of the city.
“The buildings to be demolished carry the spirit of the city. The city will not be as the same as I remember it anymore,” she said.
Abdulfattoh Shafiev, a Dushanbe- based analyst, said the demolition plans was linked to business.
“Demolition of old Stalinist buildings in the Tajik capital is completely unrelated to any ideology and is simply a business idea to build new and bigger skyscrapers in the most valuable part of Dushanbe, down- town,” he said.
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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)
OCT. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s foreign trade turnover dropped 20% in the first eight months of the year, its national statistics office said. The data is more evidence of the economic slowdown that has hit the South Caucasus over the past year.
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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)
OCT. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Akim Badalov, head Azerbaijan’s State Agency on Renewable Energy sources, said Azerbaijan will finance the construction of two small solar power plants in Germany and Turkey. The capacity of the prospective solar plant in Germany is 10 megawatts, according to the Trend news agency. Although still marginal, Azerbaijan’s interest in renewable energy has grown steadily in recent years.
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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)
OCT. 19 2015, ASTANA (The Conway Bulletin) — In a rare candid assessment of the economic storm battering Central Asia and the South Caucasus, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said the outlook for Kazakhstan’s economy was now worse than it had been during the 2007-9 Global Financial Crisis.
Mr Nazarbayev’s comments, made during a meeting with Kazakh PM Karim Massimov and published on the Presidential website, were the most candid so far by one of the region’s leaders.
And any comparison with the dark days of 2007-9, when the economies of Kazakhstan and its neighbours reversed nearly a decade of sharp growth, will hit a nerve.
“Our people must know the current situation, profits at businesses are dropping, income is falling and there is the possibility of job losses,” he said.
“This is a real crisis — more powerful than in 2007-2009.”
In 2006, according to World Bank data, Kazakhstan had been powering along and enjoying GDP growth of over 10%.
This dipped to 9% in 2007 before falling in 2008 to around 3% and in 2009 to just over 1%.
Consumers and mortgage holders defaulted on debt repayments in 2008-9 and Kazakhstan’s government had to buy up bankrupt banks. Although the Kazakh economy has recovered, the experience left deep financial and psychological scars.
And the crash this time has been just as sudden as the 2007-9 Global Financial Crisis.
In 2007-9, sub-prime mortgages in the US started the rout. This time, a sudden fall in oil and commodity prices and a loss of confidence in Emerging Markets, including in China, have been the triggers.
Currencies across Central Asia and the South Caucasus have fallen by around 40%, inflation is rising and trade volumes falling.
Kazakhstan has built up cash reserves from oil and gas sales but Mr Nazarbayev said that, although social programmes would be supported, businesses would not be bailed out.
“Companies should not expect the State to give them the means to survive. This will not happen,” he said.
Other leaders across Central Asia and the South Caucasus may not have been as forthright as Mr Nazarbayev on the economic outlook but they are facing the same stormy conditions.
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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)
OCT. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Several Japanese companies signed a framework agreement with the Turkmen government to supply equipment to the Galkynysh gas field, one of the largest in the world. Mitsubishi, Chiyoda, Sojits, Itochu and JGC are among the companies involved in the expansion of Galkynysh. Turkmenistan wants to expand Galkynysh to pump gas along a planned pipeline to India.
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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)
OCT. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – International ratings agency Standard & Poor’s said it will stop including the Kashagan oil field in its economic forecasts for Kazakhstan because of continuous delays in production.
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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)
OCT. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Hualing Georgia, a private Chinese holding, opened its first luxury hotel in Tbilisi Sea New City, a new urban development on the shores of an artificial lake near Georgia’s capital city. Hualing has invested $150m in Tbilisi Sea New City, including $73m in the hotel. China been investing heavily in the S.Caucasus.
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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)