Tag Archives: business

Turkmenistan cuts petrol subsidy

APRIL 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a surprising, and perhaps risky, move, Turkmenistan’s President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov ordered the authorities to scrap a monthly handout of petrol to car owners.

Mr Berdymukhamedov had introduced the subsidy in 2008 to ease a massive increase in the price of fuel. Mr Berdymukhamedov’s eccentric predecessor Saparmurat Niyazov had set the price of petrol at an unrealistic 2 cents per litre. Mr Berdymukhamedov wanted to raise the price to 22 cents.

Reuters quoted Turkmenistan’s state media as saying that the abolition of the fuel allowance was needed to “help sustain the growth of the national economy, achieve the efficient use of oil products and ensure their orderly converting to cash on the domestic market”.

In other words, Mr Berdymukhamedov decided that it was time to wean the population off the free fuel allowance.

Turkmenistan can, after all, afford the petrol giveaway. It has grown rich from energy exports. These exports are mainly gas. It produces roughly 10m tonnes of crude oil a year, most of which it refines into oil products locally.

Salaries are low in Turkmenistan. The sudden cut in fuel subsidies may impact people and increase resentment.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)

Property prices jump 25% in Kazakhstan’s former capital

APRIL 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Property prices in Almaty have risen by 25% over the past year as the economy rebounds and the city attracts migrants looking for work, media reported. Kazakhstan’s economy is still relatively fragile and the large property price increase has triggered concerns of a bubble.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)

Kazakhstan increases banking capital levels

APRIL 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan is going to introduce a minimum capital banking requirement that will probably whittle down the number of banks in the country.

The head of the Kazakh Central Bank, Kairat Kelimbetov, said that to meet requirements laid out in Basel-III, a set of banking benchmarks drawn up after the global financial crisis of 2008/9, banks in Kazakhstan would have to increase their capital to 100b tenge ($550m) by 2019. T

his new requirement, analysts have since said, will cut the number of banks in Kazakhstan to roughly 15 to 20, from the current 38.

For Kazakhstan’s Central Bank this is undoubtedly a positive. It takes the view that the Kazakh banking sector needs to be reformed. There are currently too many banks and too many banks with large bad loan portfolios.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)

Iran, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan sign rail deal

APRIL 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan signed agreements with their Iranian counterparts that will extend rail cooperation between the countries, media reported. Central Asian countries have been signing deals with Iran to extend a trade route to the Persian Gulf.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)

New car sales rise in Kazakhstan

APRIL 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — New car sales in Kazakhstan increased to nearly 35,000 in the first three months of 2014, a 25% increase on the same period in 2013, an industry lobby group reported. Nearly 80% of the new car sales were imports, suggesting that a 20% devaluation of the tenge in February hasn’t dented Kazakh consumer confidence.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)

EU could extend Azerbaijani pipelines

APRIL 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The European Union is considering extending the proposed TANAP-TAP gas pipeline from Azerbaijan from its current endpoint in Italy to France and Spain, the Russian newspaper Vedomosti reported quoting a European Commission official. TANAP-TAP is supposed to be completed by 2019.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)

Turkmenistan orders more Boeings

APRIL 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Turkmen government has ordered another batch of Boeing passenger planes, media reported. Turkmenistan Airlines is modernising and, according to earlier reports, bought three long-range Boeing 777-200. The latest order is for three more Boeing 737-800.

(News report from Issue No. 181, published on April 23 2014)

Train derails in Kazakhstan

APRIL 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A passenger train running between Almaty and Atyrau, western Kazakhstan, derailed injuring 44 people. Kazakhstan is pouring cash into updating and modernising its rail infrastructure. Rail remains one of the main ways to travel around the country.

(News report from Issue No. 181, published on April 23 2014)

Azerbaijani gold miner booms

APRIL 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Anglo Asian, Azerbaijan’s biggest gold producer, increased production by a third in the first three months of 2014, it said. Anglo Asian, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, also increased its output forecast for the whole of 2014 by 29%.

(News report from Issue No. 181, published on April 23 2014)

Terrorists threaten Tajik smelter TALCO

APRIL 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Security forces in Tajikistan said they had prevented a terrorist attack on TALCO, the aluminium smelter that forms the backbone of Tajikistan’s economy, media reported. According to a Tajik government spokesman, criminals had planned to detonate bombs at the plant.

(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)