MAY 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan Airways is negotiating joining the Sky Team alliance whose members include Air France, Alitalia, three Chinese airlines and others, media reported. The Uzbek national airline has been pushing hard to boost its profile and routes over the past few months.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – If more evidence was needed of the burgeoning Turkmenistan- China axis, last week provide it.
First, on May 7, Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, sitting rather comically on an oversize gilt throne, officially opened a new gas processing plant at the Bagtyarlyk field in central Turkmenistan.
The field holds an estimated 1.3 trillion cubic metres of gas which it is pumping to China, just like several other fields in Turkmenistan.
China holds exclusive rights to developing Turkmenistan’s onshore gas fields and the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) paid for the new processing plant at Bagtyarlyk.
Turkmenistan’s gas exports have swelled by a fantastic proportion over the past few years. Reuters quoted a CNPC official saying that last year Turkmenistan exported 20 billion cubic metres of gas to China and that this year the amount would grow to 25bcm. He said the aim was to hit 40bcm of gas exports to China in 2016 and 65bcm in 2020 when the giant Galkynbysh field comes on stream.
According to one source, Turkmenistan already supplies a sixth of China’s gas needs.
Mr Berdymukhamedov can claim much credit for this turnaround. His predecessor was more inward looking, more enthralled with Russia. Mr Berdymukhamedov went after China as a client, a strategy which is clearly paying off.
And a few days after opening the new processing plant, Mr Berdymukhamedov was in Beijing on an invitation from the Chinese president. There he was feted as a major ally, given a state welcome and offered a strategic partnership.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Closed since January, Azerbaijan will start sending gas to Russia through the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline soon as repair work is almost finished, the head of the state energy company SOCAR, Rovnag Abdullayev, said. Russia and Azerbaijan have rowed over gas supplies through the pipeline.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – TALCO, the aluminium plant that is at the centre of Tajikistan’s economy, cut production by 39.5% between January and March, media reported quoting the economy and trade ministry. TALCO had predicted a fall in aluminium production in February. It blamed the fall on a global crash in aluminium prices.
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(News report from Issue No. 184, published on May 14 2014)
MAY 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — They may be neighbours but Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has had little time over the past four years to visit his Tajik counterpart Emomali Rakhmon.
Now though, Mr Berdymukhamedov has been in Dushanbe catching up with Mr Rakhmon and mulling various projects, particularly in the energy and transport sector.
It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to hear of Mr Berdymukhamedov’s first trip to Dushanbe since 2010. The geo-politics of gas has thrown these two countries together.
Turkmenistan has transformed itself into one of China’s biggest gas suppliers. It needs Tajikistan to help it pump gas to its client and pipelines are the main motivating factor behind Mr Berdymukhamedov’s trip to Dushanbe.
The state-owned China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) has already signed a deal with the Tajik authorities to lay part of a new pipeline that will pump gas from Turkmenistan to China. Through the Turkmen state newspaper Neutral Turkmenistan, Mr Berdymukhamedov said work on the Tajik branch of the gas pipeline to China would start shortly.
Media reported the two leaders discussed other issues during Mr Berdymukahmedov’s stay in Dushanbe, security after NATO leaves Afghanistan and regional transport issues, but energy clearly formed the basis of the meeting.
Energy, and China’s thirst for it, sets the diplomatic agenda inside Central Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)
MAY 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Would it go too far to dub it “Potatogate”? Possibly not.
Last year Tajikistan’s agriculture ministry boasted of the republic’s first-ever million tonne harvest but now Tajik media are claiming locally-grown potatoes have disappeared from the country’s bazaars and have been replaced by a more expensive variety from Pakistan.
Confused? Many Tajiks are.
Earlier in the year, the ministry declined requests from the news agency Avesta.tj for comment on the whereabouts of last year’s potato bounty but on May 5 agriculture minister Kosim Rokhbar finally relented.
Mr Rokhbar said that part of the harvest had been exported and the rest had spoiled in the country’s obsolete storage units.
In other words 2013’s million tonne potato harvest had disappeared.
And prices reflect this. The price of 1kg of potatoes has jumped 20% to 80 cents since March.
It appears that, possibly, a mix of corruption and incompetence has destroyed Tajikistan’s bumper potato harvest forcing normal people to suffer.
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(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)
MAY 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon hosted talks with his Turkmen counterpart President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov for the first time in four years. Various deals and documents were signed by both sides, including the start of work on a new gas pipeline.
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(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)
MAY 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kenes Rakishev, one of the best connected men in Kazakhstan, bought a minority stake in retailer Magnum Cash & Carry. Magnum has seven shops in Almaty and two in Astana. Reports did not say how much Mr Rakishev paid for his stake nor who he bought the stake from.
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(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)
ARSLANBOB/Kyrgyzstan, MAY 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — In rural Kyrgyzstan, walnuts are important. Ilhon sighed as he leaned in and explained the significance of the walnut to the local economy of this small village in the Jalalabad region, south Kyrgyzstan.Surrounding the village is a 60,000 hectare walnut forest, providing a crop of about 1,000 tonnes each year.
In a country as poor as Kyrgyzstan, walnut crops can make up around a third of the average annual salary. The walnut season also provides a trickle-down effect on employment.
As well as the farmers, who lease the state-owned land to collect the walnut, other people are employed to shell walnuts and drivers to transport it to local markets. Most of the walnuts are then sent to Turkey, Iran and Iraq.
Still, it is just seasonal labour and when the season finishes its time to find fresh work.
Just like most of Kyrgyzstan, Ilhon and his brother look to Russia for help.
They head north to find casual labour, sending home most of what they earn. It’s tough and the pay isn’t great, but at least is does pay.
“Life is more difficult in winter,” Ilhon said of the drop in employment once the walnut season ends. “There is very little work around Arslanbob. Many of the men here go to Russia.”
There is another problem for Ilhon and others living and working in the walnut forests of south Kyrgyzstan. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the forests have been increasingly poorly managed. These forests are the largest walnut forests in the world but they are also under threat.”
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(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)
MAY 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan has offered India’s state-owned energy company ONGC Videsh a stake in the Abai oil field in the Caspian Sea, media reported. Almost exactly a year ago, Kazakhstan blocked a deal by India to buy a stake in the giant Kashagan oil field. India has been looking to Kazakhstan to boost its oil reserves.
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(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)