MARCH 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Underling just how dependent Azerbaijan is on oil exports, the Central Bank published data that showed that 95% of its exports in 2013 were energy related. It exported $26.9b worth of oil and $1.6b worth of processed oil products, mainly to neighbouring Georgia.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Along Kazakhstan’s southern border hundreds of labourers are working on a project that is supposed to reignite the old Silk Road and turn the country into a central trading hub once again.
It’s an ambitious $5.5b project to build a road that crosses this vast arid land prone to freezing, heavy winters and burning, hot summers.
Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev inaugurated the project in September 2009. Nearly five years later, work is still ongoing.
At a roadside outside Shymkent, a teeming city of 650,000 people on the border with Uzbekistan, Baurzhan surveyed his road-building teams.
“Our company is a small private local enterprise and we won a small tender. Together with other local companies we are building most access roads and smaller sections of the highway,” he told a Conway Bulletin correspondent.
“Our work is going well, but severe weather has delayed our work by at least three months.”
Heavy snow storms have smashed into southern Kazakhstan this year, flooding villages and infrastructure.
The road is supposed to link Lianyungang on China’s eastern coast with St Petersburg in Russia. It’s an 8,445km stretch, with 2,787km cutting through the Kazakh steppe.
But there is some debate over whether Kazakhstan will actually benefit from this super-highway.
In Shymkent, Nurzhan, a 26-year-old British educated university graduate, said: “The road won’t benefit Kazakhstan, as we will only be the link between two bigger markets.”
A commercial truck driver disagreed. “My brother is buying fifty brand new trucks,” he said. “We hope this investment will bring returns as soon as trade starts.”
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — UzMobile, the new mobile operator in Uzbekistan run by Uzbektelecom, will be exempt from paying licence fees for five years, local media reported quoting the government. The Uzbek government is keen to set up its own mobile company after foreign companies working in the sector ran into various regulatory problems.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Uzbek government aims to stop cash leaving the country by forcing local companies to get written permission from the Central Bank before opening foreign bank accounts, media reported. Foreign companies have long complained that repatriating profits is a major problem for businesses in Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — TALCO, the Tajik aluminium smelter and the country’s largest single industrial asset, has denied an earlier ministry of finance statement that accused it of being on the brink of bankruptcy, local media reported. TALCO is controversial because of its links to Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia may quadruple its gas imports to 2b cubic metres a year from Iran, media reported quoting Armenian energy minister Armen Movsisyan. Over the past few years Armenia and Iran have improved relations. Both countries have been searching for regional allies.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The impact of Kazakhstan’s 20% currency devaluation last month is beginning to filter through to business.
Kazakh senator Mikhail Bortnik said that unless JSC International Airport Aktau could restructure its dollar-denominated debt, it would go bankrupt.
JSC International Airport Aktau, which under a deal with Mangistau regional government is owned by Turkish company ATM until 2025, has re-built Aktau airport’s passenger terminal and runway over the last few years.
It is now Kazakhstan’s third busiest airport, behind Almaty and Astana, and hosts flights from Baku, Kiev, Moscow and central Europe.
But after February’s tenge devaluation the $47m debt that Mangistau regional government took on to re-build the airport from the state-run Development Bank of Kazakhstan (DBK) has become 20% more expensive to service.
The problem for the DBK is that if it agrees to restructure the Aktau airport debt, it may have to restructure several other company debts too.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian energy company Lukoil invested $660m in gas projects in Uzbekistan last year, media reported quoting a company press release. This is a 38% increase in Lukoil’s investment in 2012 and underlines just how important Russian investment is for Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Pollution and poor irrigation management have killed off much of the fish in Lake Sevan in Armenia, media quoted experts as saying. Lake Sevan is one of the world’s biggest fresh water lakes and one of Armenia’s main tourist attractions.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s rail network recorded a total revenue of 223m manat ($30m) in 2013, roughly the same as in 2012, media reported. International organisations are ploughing millions of dollars into reviving the Soviet-era railway network. Cargo shipments generated over 90% of the revenue.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)