MARCH 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The government of the Karaganda region has said that ArcelorMittal’s temporary move to knock 25% off its workers’ wages at its steel plant in Temirtau last month was illegal, the Tengrinews website reported. It has filed a lawsuit against ArcelorMittal, one of Kazakhstan’s biggest foreign investors.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 4 2015 (The Bulletin) – Azerbaijan will start exporting weapons to Arab countries this year, media reported quoting the Azerbaijani defence industry minister, Yaver Jamalov. The statement is more evidence that Azerbaijan is concentrating on developing its arms industry, particularly machine guns and rifles.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 4 2015 (The Bulletin) – Kazakhstan banned the import of light oil products from Russia for 45 days from March 5 . The measure was brought in to stem the flow of Russian oil products, made cheaper by the fall in the value of the rouble, and to protect jobs and business at Kazakh refineries.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 10 2015 (The Bulletin) – China is preparing to begin work on building the first oil refinery in Tajikistan, media reported. China says that work is about to begin and that it should be operational by the end of the year. The refinery is important because it will reduce Tajikistan’s reliance on Russian oil products.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 11 2015 (The Bulletin) – Gas production in Turkmenistan, critical for the country’s economic welfare, jumped by 5.2% during the first two months of the year, media reported quoting the Turkmen energy ministry. Turkmenistan has the fourth largest gas reserves in the world. Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has said that he wants to boost gas production to offset the impact of a growing financial crisis.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 10 2015 (The Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan wants to attract more tourists to its ski resorts, media quoted the deputy tourism minister Aynura Temirbekova as saying. She said that Kyrgyzstan’s relaxation of its visa regime had already given it a boost. Tourism is a sector that western businesses have said Kyrgyzstan could better exploit.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 11 2015 (The Bulletin) – Azerbaijani officials have asked their EU counterparts to speed up the authorisation of Azerbaijan’s purchase in 2013 of a 66% stake in DESFA, Greece’s gas pipeline network, for $423m. The European Commission is investigating the potential takeover for any breeches of competition rules.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 11 2015 (The Bulletin) – Oil production in Azerbaijan is likely to drop by around 4% this year to 806,000 barrels per day, media reported quoting senior officials at state energy company SOCAR.
This is more bad news for Azerbaijan which is largely reliant on oil and gas sales for its revenues.
The fall in oil prices has already hit Azerbaijan which has cut government spending and devalued its manat currency.
The main problem for Azerbaijan’s oil production is that output at the BP-led Azeri, Chirag and Guneshli (ACG) is falling. ACG makes up the vast majority of Azerbaijan’s current oil output and only it could knock overall production so substantially.
BP has tried to stem the oil production decline but with limited success. Azerbaijan has put BP under increased pressure to find a solution, so for a senior SOCAR figure to brief the media so early in the year that ACG is likely to miss its targets is telling. Perhaps, Azerbaijan is trying to put BP under more pressure.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 7 2015 (The Bulletin) – Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a Japanese company, has won a tender to build a chemical complex in central Uzbekistan, media reported quoting the Uzbek government press service. Reports said that the complex, which will produce ammonia, will cost around $1b to build. Ammonia is used in fertiliser.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)
MARCH 5 2015 (The Bulletin) – After years of pirating software, Georgia’s government signed a deal with Microsoft to officially licence its operating system and other products, signalling its desire to promote its IT sector.
According to a 2013 study by the Business Software Alliance, a US-based industry lobby group, Georgia had the highest global software piracy rate. Around 90% of all the software installed in the country was unlicensed, including the government’s software.
Giga Paitchadze, IT expert and well known blogger, said this was a step towards professionalising Georgia’s image.
“Using licensed software on a state level will have a spill over effect on Georgian society, it will be a soft recommendation to respect other people’s work,” he said. “Just as our own intellectual property, patents, and products, need to be protected around the world as well.”
The license agreement is expected to have a positive effect on the Georgian IT sector. In the past few years, IT has been a major focus point of both the current and the previous government to be more competitive globally.
The government has estimated that the deal with Microsoft will cost around $8m to buy all state agencies with the latest versions of Microsoft’s operating systems.
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(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)