JULY 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – London-listed Anglo Asian Mining increased gold production by a third in the first half of the year. Anglo Asian Mining produces gold at Azerbaijani mines in which the government also owns a stake. If Anglo Asian has increased its gold production, the government will also have increased its revenue.
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(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
DUSHANBE, JULY 12/13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Indian PM Narendra Modi’s grand tour of Central Asia ended with a visit to Tajikistan, once again sparking the decade long rumour that India would lease the Ayni airbase near Dushanbe.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty website reported that Mr Modi and Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon visited the Ayni military base 15km outside Dushanbe as well as a 50-bed military field hospital India helped set up last year, ramping up speculation an agreement was about to be signed.
Instead, the two leaders signed far less eye-catching deals on culture and education.
India has been looking to lease an airbase in Central Asia for years.
It helped renovate the air base at Ayni in 2003 but appears to have been blocked from renting the base, possibly by Russia or China, Tajikistan’s close allies.
Earlier on the trip in Russia, Mr Modi had signed a deal for India to join the China and Russia led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) military/economic group focused on Central Asia.
India wants to start competing with China for influence over Central Asia and also for access to its various energy and metal deposits.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
JULY 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – China imported around 23% more Georgian wine in the first half of this year from last year, new figures showed, making it one of Georgia’s fifth most important market. Georgia’s agriculture minister, Otar Danelia, was in Beijing to meet his Chinese counterpart.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
JULY 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The World Bank approved a $305m loan to Uzbekistan to update and modernise its motorway network and a second loan of $105m to improve the irrigation network in the Bukhara region, media reported. Human rights groups have criticises the world Bank for the loans.
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(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)
JULY 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Korea’s Huawei has won a contract to fit out a 265km section of railway running across Turkmenistan from the border with Kazakhstan to Iran, media reported. Korean companies are winning a number of contracts in Turkmenistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)
JULY 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s oil and gas ministry accused Russia’s Gazprom of failing to pay for natural gas it has supplied it with this year, aggravating a bitter row between the two countries.
Gazprom declined to comment. “Since the beginning of 2015, Gazprom has not paid its debts to the state corporation Turkmengaz for the volumes of Turkmen gas it supplied,” the Turkmen government statement said on its website.
“Russian company Gazprom has become insolvent on its natural gas purchase-and-sale contracts due to the continued global economic crisis and economic sanctions imposed by Western nations on Russia.”
Turkmenistan and Russia have publicly rowed before. In 2014, Gazprom slashed the amount of gas it imported from Turkmenistan to 11b cubic metres (bcm). In 2015, it planned to buy 4bcm. This is a huge drop from previous purchases. In 2008, Gazprom bought 40 bcm from Turkmenistan. And the row has also sucked in other sectors.
In 2010, Turkmenistan expelled Russian mobile phone operator MTS from the country. It later re-installed it.
The drop in Russian gas purchases has forced Turkmenistan to look elsewhere for clients. China has become its biggest client and it is trying to win contracts from the European Union.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)
JULY 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s foreign currency reserves declined by 4.4% in the first half of 2015, data from the Central Bank showed. Kazakhstan, like other countries across the region, has been defending the value of its currency by spending its reserves.
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(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)
JULY 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – More people in Kazakhstan have pre-ordered the new $294,000 Bentley car from Rolls Royce than in Russia, Bloomberg News quoted Peter Schwarzenbauer, a BMW director, as saying. BMW owns Rolls Royce. This is anecdotal evidence that the Kazakh luxury market is still strong.
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(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)
JULY 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Only around 5,000 trucks with Turkish produce travel to Turkmenistan each year through the South Caucasus and the Caspian Sea because crossing Azerbaijan is too expensive, the head of the Turkish International Road Carriers Association, Fatih Sener, told local media. Around 50,000 trucks travel via Iran.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)
JULY 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – GM Uzbekistan, a joint venture between the Uzbek government and US carmaker GM, sold 10,357 cars in Russia in the first half of this year, media reported quoting the company.
This is 57% less than in 2014 and highlights the economic problems rebounding around Central Asia linked to the decline in Russia’s economy.
Russia is one of GM Uzbekistan’s biggest market, so for it to drop away so seriously is bad news for the company.
GM Uzbekistan is based near the city of Andijan in eastern Uzbekistan.
In 2010, GM Uzbekistan employed 5,000 people. If demand for its cars, and it mainly produces mid-range Chevrolet cars at this plant, falls away significantly then these jobs may be under threat.
The drop in car sales is symptomatic of a general decline in economic conditions around the Central Asia region.
As well as a drop in exports to Russia, remittance flows back to Central Asia from workers in Moscow and beyond have dropped across the region by around 40%. Currencies have also dropped in value by around a third.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 239, published on July 9 2015)