NOV. 29 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Uzbekistan continued to ramp up pressure on Gulanara Karimova, eldest daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimov. On Nov. 27, the Central Bank withdrew an operating licence for Credit Standard Bank, which is linked to her. Later, police also closed down art and jewellery stores belong to Ms Karimova.
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(News report from Issue No. 163, published on Dec. 4 2013)
DEC. 3 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tax inspectors in Uzbekistan have surprised observers by apparently pulling back from prosecuting Russia’s VimpelCom for tax evasion.
A report by the Russian news agency RIA-Novosti quoted a source from the Uzbek tax committee as saying that a two-month long investigation had found no violations.
“The inspection is complete. The company has received a resolution with some criticism but no violations of the tax legislation have been found,” an unnamed source at the Uzbek tax authorities told RIA-Novosti.
This will come as a relief to VimpelCom executives who must have feared at one point that they would be going the way of their Russian rival MTS which had to quit Uzbekistan earlier this year after a similar tax case ended in charges.
VimpelCom operates in Uzbekistan under its Beeline brand name. With roughly 55% of the country’s 19m mobile users, it is the largest mobile provider in Uzbekistan.
No details of why tax inspectors dropped the case against VimpelCom have been released.
No doubt there were behind-the-scenes negotiations between VimpelCom and the Uzbek authorities and between Russian and Uzbek officials, but we don’t know the details of what was agreed. Throughout, VimpelCom have denied the charges and said that it is the victim of an elaborate shake-down by the authorities, something they are renowned for.
Regardless, it will be a relief for investors in Uzbekistan generally. They have increasingly complained of Uzbekistan’s difficult business climate.
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(News report from Issue No. 163, published on Dec. 4 2013)
NOV. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Uzbek authorities have tightened rules on private banking and money wiring. As of Nov. 25, Uzbek banks are now required to establish the identity of citizens exchanging $4,000, a tenth of the previously allowed amount.
Also, the new rules reduce to a total of $17,000 in three consecutive months the maximum amount people can wire without being considered as suspicious.
The authorities have said new regulations are part of efforts to combat terrorism financing and money laundering.
The timing, though, appears pertinent. Gulnara Karimova, the embattled eldest daughter of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, recently touched upon the money laundering issues on her Twitter page.
She said the Tashkent-based Asia Alliance Bank, established in August 2009, holds all of Uzbekistan’s assets and that this bank was set up specifically to launder money.
It’s important to note, though, that no formal charges have ever been levied at Asia Alliance Bank.
Ms Karimova, though, must tread carefully on money laundering. The French authorities currently have an ongoing case against her.
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(News report from Issue No. 163, published on Dec. 4 2013)
NOV. 17 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A fire destroyed a large part of the Barakholka market, a scruffy site on the outskirts of Almaty where many poorer Kazakhs and migrants from China work. This is the third fire at Barakholka in the past couple of months. The Kazakh emergencies ministry has said it suspects arson.
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(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)
NOV. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan clearly wants to burnish its solar power credentials.
It has discussed these credentials at length since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and now appears to be taking a major step towards realising them.
The president of the Asia Development Bank, Takehiko Nakao, said that it had agreed a $110m loan to help finance the construction of a solar panel park near Samarkand. The Uzbek government has agreed to spend another $190m on the project.
The plan is to cover an area roughly the size of 560 football pitches (soccer pitches for our American readers) with solar panels.
It’s certainly ambitious, and so it should be. Sun drenches Uzbekistan for most of the year making it a good bet for solar power.
Solar power represents part of the answer to Uzbekistan’s power problems but only if the authorities don’t sell the electricity that the site generates abroad.
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(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)
NOV. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Asian Development Bank unveiled plans to build a solar panel plant in Uzbekistan the size of 560 football pitches. If successful, the plant could become an important source of energy for Uzbekistan which experiences regular shortages.
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(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)
NOV. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia has resumed sending tangerines to Russia after a seven-year gap, news organisations reported quoting Georgian officials. The resumption of fruit exports to Russia is another indication of the normalisation of Georgia- Russia relations after a brief war in 2008.
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(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)
NOV. 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — With a $2.2b fortune and the ear of the president, Bulat Utemuratov is one of the most powerful people in Kazakhstan.
Bloomberg News interviewed Mr Utemuratov at the new Rixos Borovoye hotel in northern Kazakhstan.
Mr Utemuratov is probably best known for selling his bank, ATF Bank, to Austria’s UniCredit Bank in 2007 for $2b.
And this deal, according to an excerpt from his interview with Bloomberg News, acted as a turning point in Mr Utemuratov’s business thinking.
“I decided after selling ATF Bank to UniCredit that we must stop using offshore companies and become more transparent,” he said in the Bloomberg interview.
“Everything must be clean.”
Mr Utemuratov had owned ATF Bank through a series of offshore accounts. The global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009 exposed dubious accounting practices. Since then, Mr Utemuratov said he had bought or set up another couple of banks, both of which he owns transparently.
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(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)
NOV. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Topaz Energy and Marine, an oil field service company based in Dubai, said it had won two contracts worth $100m contract with BP in Azerbaijan. Topaz said it will perform supply duties at the ACG and Shah Deniz fields in the Caspian Sea. It will launch one vessel to serve the contract this year and another next year.
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(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)
NOV. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Nurlan Kussainov, the CEO of the state-owned Kazakhstan Development Bank, resigned, local media reported. Media reports didn’t specify why Mr Kussainov quit the post he had held since April 2011. Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna controls the Kazakhstan Development Bank.
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(News report from Issue No. 162, published on Nov. 27 2013)