MARCH 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s non-oil sector, a key benchmark of economic development, grew by 8.8% in January and February of this year compared to the same period in 2013, the state statistics agency reported. International economists have said that Azerbaijan needs to reduce its economic dependence on energy.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has approved plans to build a new airport outside Almaty to serve as an international hub, media reported. The current airport at Almaty is too small to handle Kazakhstan’s ambitions of becoming a transit point for people flying between Europe and Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Looking to reduce bad loans, Kazakhstan’s Central Bank imposed tighter regulations on its banks’ lending. In a statement, the Central Bank said banks would be banned from lending to people whose repayments would equal half their monthly income. Nearly a third of all 90-day loans in Kazakhstan are overdue.
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(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
MARCH 5 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Acting as a peacemaker, the Aktobe regional government in north-west Kazakhstan stepped in to mediate in a labour dispute at an oil field operated by China’s state-run energy company CNPC.
The move highlights what appears to be Kazakhstan’s preferred policy when strikes are threatened — to appease labour unions rather than antagonise.
Kazakhstan is desperate to avoid a repeat of an oil workers’ strike in the western oil town of Zhanaozen in 2011 which ended in violence that killed at least 15 people.
Kazakh workers at CNPC AktobeMunaiGas say that they are treated unfairly, paid less and live in worse conditions compared to their Chinese counterparts.
This is a not a new complaint and, although China is a key energy client, Kazakhstan has pushed to improve worker conditions at Chinese companies. And this was no exception.
“The Commission recommended that managers improve the system of remuneration and create conditions for the production in accordance with labour laws,” the Aktobe government said in a statement.
Importantly sources in Aktobe said the threatened strike now appears to be on hold.
CNPC AktobeMunaiGas is one of Kazakhstan biggest oil producers, producing around 6m tonnes each year.
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(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
MARCH 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — China’s state-run energy company CNPC set up a firm with Tajikistan’s Tajiktransgas to build a fourth branch of a pipeline pumping gas from Turkmenistan to China. China now dominates energy exports from Central Asia. Tajikistan will received a fee for hosting the pipeline.
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(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
MARCH 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Almaty ruled in favour of Kazakhstan’s anti-monopoly commission by upholding an $88m fine against Kcell, majority owned by Swedish-Finnish TeliaSonera, for abusing its dominant market position. Kcell introduced an SMS system to alert customers of missed calls. The anti-monopoly commission said this was unfair.
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(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
MARCH 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Beeline Uzbekistan, Vimpelcom’s subsidiary, saw its revenue grow by 11% in 2013 to $175m, it said during its annual results presentation.
The company also boosted its customer numbers by 3% in 2013 to 10.5m partly because MTS’s subsidiary, Uzdunrobita, had been chased out of Uzbekistan in 2012. This is a smaller jump than you may have imagined but most of the switch over of customers from Uzdunrobita to Beeline happened in Q4 2012.
Most importantly from the presentation was the statistic that data usage rose significantly in Uzbekistan last year.
Beeline reported a 61% jump in mobile data revenue. This is mainly internet surfing on mobile phones. What this means is that the Uzbek mobile consumer is becoming increasingly sophisticated.
Beeline is one of two mobile providers in Uzbekistan. Ucell, owned by Swedish-Finnish mobile operator TeliaSonera, has a similar number of customers.
Both Beeline and Ucell will have watched the MTS saga apprehensively. For now, though, Uzbekistan is a good market.
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(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
MARCH 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will increase export duty on oil by 33% to $80 per tonne from April 1 to boost budget revenues, economy minister Yerbolat Dossayev said. Kazakhstan may be using cash raised through the oil export tariff to bolster its economy after devaluing its currency by 20% in February.
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(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
MARCH 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan increased its exports of military equipment by 500% in 2013, media quoted a government report as saying. Azerbaijan has previously said that it wants to boost its arms manufacturing sector. It has invested much of its relatively recent oil wealth into its military.
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(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
MARCH 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s government slapped a $735m fine on the consortium developing the Kashagan Caspian Sea oil field for environmental damage from burning off gas during repairs to a leak. The $50b Kashagan project sprung a gas leak in October, barely a month after production started.
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(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)