FEB. 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan temporarily reduced gas supplies to southern Kazakhstan leaving thousands of people in the south Kazakh city of Shymkent unable to heat their homes or cook, local media reported. Uzbek officials said pipeline repair work had caused the gas supply shortage. Central Asia’s energy system is complex and interconnected.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 170, published on Feb. 5 2014)
FEB. 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Technology and Science Dynamics Inc. an Armenian-US joint venture, unveiled its much anticipated Armtab tablet. The Armtab has been heralded as a significant step for Armenia’s fledgling technology sector. The Armtab is similar in size to Apple’s iPad.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 170, published on Feb. 5 2014)
FEB. 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan will launch its second telecoms satellite in 2017, media reported quoting the state-owned Azercosmos. Azerbaijan launched its first telecoms satellite from French Guyana in February 2013. It is used by companies across the South Caucasus and Central Asia.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 170, published on Feb. 5 2014)
FEB. 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — It’s been a bad week for senior officials in Tajikistan. Media reported that a court in Dushanbe had sent the daughter-in-law of a senior Tajik diplomat to prison for 12-1/2 years for drug smuggling and that President Emomali Rakhmon had sacked the head of the Tajik railway company after his son was involved in a deadly crash.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 170, published on Feb. 5 2014)
JAN. 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan is looking to secure a $650m loan from the Japan International Development Agency (JICA) to build a thermal power plant in the Ferghana Valley, media reported. Japan has been looking to boost its influence in Central Asia over the past few years.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 170, published on Feb. 5 2014)
JAN. 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Tashkent ruled that an Uzbek company had broken copyright rules by using branding registered to the Nivea skin-care products, local media reported. German company Beiersdorf owns the Nivea brand. Protecting intellectual property is a challenge for Western companies working in Central Asia.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 170, published on Feb. 5 2014)
FEB. 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The CEO of Italian energy company ENI, Paolo Scaroni, flew to Ashgabat to meet with Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. Mr Scaroni talked up the prospects of ENI exploring for oil and gas in the Turkmen sector of the Caspian Sea. Most of Turkmenistan’s main gas projects are currently onshore.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 170, published on Feb. 5 2014)
FEB. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The proportion of savings held in Kazakh tenge dropped to 62.6% in 2013 from 70.2% a year earlier, media quoted Kazakhstan’s Central Bank chief Kairat Kelimbetov as saying. Mr Kelimbetov said that he wanted to boost this figure and reduce the amount of savings held in US dollars.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 170, published on Feb. 5 2014)
FEB. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — French engineering company Thales has won a deal to upgrade equipment on Baku’s metro system, media reported quoting a senior company official. The Azerbaijani government has pledged to update and extend the Baku metro, which dates from the 1960s.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 170, published on Feb. 5 2014)
JAN. 23 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — MTS, the Russian telecoms firm, is reportedly negotiating with Uzbekistan on ways to re-enter the country.
In an interview with Russian media Vladimir Yevtushenko, chairman of Sistema which owns MTS, said that he was already negotiating the company’s return to Uzbekistan.
“Yes, I participate, but there are no predictions,” Mr Yevtushenko said in response to a question by a reporter from the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti on whether he was personally involved in negotiations over MTS potential return to Uzbekistan.
“Being out, well, not working (in Uzbekistan), is also good. Today, for us it is all history. Of course, a return would be good for MTS and for Uzbekistan but, as they say, the devil always lies in the details.”
MTS says that it was chased out of Uzbekistan, where it did have about half the mobile phone subscriber market, in 2012 after a series of tax cases were launched against it. Since then the Uzbek authorities have confiscated MTS equipment in Uzbekistan and unsuccessfully tried to auction it off.
But as well as negotiating with the Uzbek authorities, reports said that MTS has also started proceedings against Uzbekistan at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).
For investors, the MTS dispute has become an important yardstick for measuring the problems of doing business in Uzbekistan.
This makes MTS’s carrot and stick approach, both negotiating and prosecuting through the courts, important to watch.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 169, published on Jan. 29 2014)