MARCH 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Keen to boost the government’s progressive credentials, Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili said he wanted the entire country to have access to high-speed internet by 2017. Currently around 40% of the country has high-speed internet, he said.
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(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
APRIL 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia used its control of gas supplies to Armenia to pressure the government into joining its Eurasian Economic Union, a parliamentary inquiry has said.
The inquiry said Russia increased gas prices to Armenia until it agreed to join the Eurasian Economic Union in 2013.
The findings are strong evidence that Russia uses its economic leverage over Central Asia and the South Caucasus for political gain.
Also in the past week, Russia approved a $1 billion development fund for Kyrgyzstan. This, again, appears linked to Kyrgyzstan’s entry to the Eurasian Economic Union later this year.
The West has long said the Kremlin’s aim in the region is to coerce governments into doing its bidding.
In Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, it has found vulnerable partners. Both are relatively poor with few natural resources. They both host Russian military bases and are reliant on Russian business and remittances from workers living in Russia for growth.
Importantly too, Gazprom owns the gas pipeline network in both Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. This has often been the choke point. Controlling a country’s gas supply gives Russia huge power.
There is one other major similarity between Armenia and Kyrgyzstan regarding membership of the Eurasian Economic Union. Bulletin correspondents in both countries report that most ordinary people, and also many of the politicians, don’t really want to join the group. Instead, they feel compelled to.
Belarus and Kazakhstan, both far larger economies, are also members of the EEU.
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(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
MARCH 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – On a trip to Beijing, Kazakh PM Karim Massimov signed deals with his Chinese counterpart, Li Keqiang, worth $23.6b. The deals covered a range of industries from steel and glass production to oil refining and hydropower. China and Kazakhstan have increased cooperation in the past few years.
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(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
MARCH 25 2015, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — Nurlan Kapparov, a key member of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s inner cortege and head of the Kazakh nuclear agency Kazatomprom, died of a suspected heart attack while on a business trip to Beijing. He was 44-years-old.
Slick and Western-educated, Kapparov was part of the post-Soviet wave of loyal bureaucrats who helped Nazarbayev retain his grip on power. Having headed state energy company KazakhOil, been Kazakhstan’s environment minister and, most recently, head of the state nuclear agency KazAtomProm, sources said that Kapparov had the potential to be a senior government minister.
While he never openly showed such lofty ambition, his presence in and around the government was keenly felt. He acted in the shadows, influencing Kazakhstan’s transition to a more nationalist energy policy. In 2000, as a young vice-minister of energy he was able to negotiate an increase in Kazakhstan’s share of the Tengiz oil field, to the detriment of the US’s Chevron.
Kapparov was also a powerful businessman. The Lancaster Group — which can be traced back to him — is the conduit through which several joint ventures with oil and mining multinationals accessed the Kazakh market. With strong ties to ENI and Saipem, Kapparov had been president of the Kazakhstan-Italy Business Council.
Kapparov had been in China together with Kazakh PM Karim Massimov to strike a handful of multi-billion dollars deals. Ahead of the main deal-making day, he was discovered on the floor of a lavatory in a Beijing restaurant. He had died of a suspected heart attack.
Hundreds gathered in Almaty to mourn his death at the Academy of Sciences although, importantly, veterans and state officials were bussed in to increase attendance. The divide between the government and ordinary people in Kazakhstan is such that enough the sudden death of senior officials is greeted with indifference.
Ambition and acumen brought Kapparov to power and his loss will be felt by the government.
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(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
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APRIL 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazkommertzbank, one of Kazakhstan’s largest banks, named American Marc Holtzman as its new chairman, replacing Nurzhan Subkhanberdin. Mr Subkhanberdin remains a major shareholder in Kazkommertzbank. He lives mainly in London and has backed opponents of Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev.
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(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
MARCH 26 2015, Almaty (The Conway Bulletin) – Cyan coloured labels proudly proclaiming “Made in Kazakhstan” have appeared in supermarkets across Kazakhstan, part of a government drive to promote local products.
Data collected by a Bulletin correspondent, though, suggested some labels may be misleading, perhaps even farcical.
At three supermarkets in central Almaty, basic agriculture goods — milk, cheese, yogurt — carrying the label did appear to be genuinely made in Kazakhstan but Italian chocolates and Belgian and French beer, all imported from Europe, also carried the label.
The Kazakh news magazine Vlast also looked into the veracity of the “Made in Kazakhstan” labels.
In its investigation, Vlast said that some ice cream and sweets sold as Kazakh had actually been made in Russia, part of the flood of Russian goods imported into Kazakhstan since the devaluation of the Russian rouble.
When Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev announced the “Made in Kazakhstan” drive earlier this year he wanted the label to stimulate the local economy. It currently needs more oversight or risks becoming meaningless.
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(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
MARCH 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Geo-Jade Petroleum, a Chinese energy company, said it will buy KoZhan, a Kazakh energy company, for around $350m, media reported. KoZhan is owned by the so-called Eurasian Trio of Kazakh oligarchs.
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(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
MARCH 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Following a clutch of other US fast-food chains, Domino’s Pizza expects to open its first store in Tbilisi in mid-April. Geopizza, which owns the Domino’s Pizza franchise in Georgia, said it wanted to set up 12 stores within five years.
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(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
MARCH 26 2015, Tbilisi (The Conway Bulletin) – A state-of-the-art greenhouse, aimed at producing high-grade tomatoes, opened in Georgia.
Co-owned by French company Richel and the Georgian government, the so-called Greenhouse Corporation plans to reduce imports of tomatoes by 30%. With the devaluation of the lari currency over the past few months, food imports have gotten more expensive.
Dimitri Kolensikov, director of the Greenhouse Corporation, also said that the greenhouse was a technological triumph.
“This is the highest greenhouse in Georgia and the second construction in the Caucasus region,” media quoted him as saying.
“The higher the greenhouse is, the easier is to control climate and dampness. This is an energy efficient automated greenhouse.”
The greenhouse is located in the village of Kapanakhchi, to the south of Tbilisi.
And the greenhouse also represents hi-tech farming in Georgia, where low-tech small farmsteads still predominate.
Technology, seed crops and biologists have been employed from Europe to help set up the greenhouse.
The Greenhouse Corporation expects to expand over the next year.
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(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
MARCH 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Banks in Azerbaijan are passing on costs triggered by the devaluation of the manat to their clients, the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) said.
The most vulnerable are people who took out loans in foreign currencies before the devaluation.
IWPR quoted local media which attributed two suicides to the devaluation and the sudden increased cost of repaying debt.
It also suggested that the commercial banks have been breaking the law by making people pay back loans at the new, weaker, exchange rate.
The IWPR quoted a Supreme Court judge saying that banks should continue to charge consumers the rate they took the loan out originally.
Experts have warned Azerbaijan that it needs to reduce consumers’ debt burdens to ensure its economic security.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)