OCT. 30 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan plans to sell a 51% stake in RSK Bank, the largest state-owned bank, by 2017, media quoted the IMF representative in Bishkek, Koba Gvenetadze, as saying. Over the past three years, Kyrgyzstan has tried, and often failed, to sell off various state assets. Investors are wary of instability.
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(News report from Issue No. 158, published on Oct. 30 2013)
OCT. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The three founders of Kazakhstan-based miner ENRC have applied to de-list the company from the London Stock Exchange (LSE), media reported. The so-called ENRC Trio — Alexander Machkevitch, Alijan Ibragimov and Pathokh Chodiev — want to pull ENRC from the LSE after a series of corporate governance scandals.
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(News report from Issue No. 158, published on Oct. 30 2013)
OCT. 24 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan increased its state-imposed cap on fuel prices by 7 tenge to 117 tenge ($0.76) per litre of 92-octane petrol. Prices for the lower grade 80-octane petrol and diesel were left unchanged.
The closure of the refinery in Shymkent for scheduled repairs has triggered localised fuel shortages in the weeks prior to the price hike, scheduled for November.
In Southern Kazakhstan fuel was sold only through coupons and in limited quantities. Lines of cars queued at petrol stations that quickly ran out of 92-octane fuel and supplied only the 80-octane version.
Fuel price rises hurt consumers and tension is brewing in Kazakhstan.
According to the Kazakhstan Fuel Association (KFA), a fuel industry lobby group, routine repairs at the Shymkent refinery caused the shortage. It is only one of three refineries in Kazakhstan.
The government has instead blamed a general global increase in oil for the rise on the petrol price cap.
Ordinary drivers are even more frustrated. They blame owners of petrol stations for holding back supplies until the fuel price cap had been raised.
They’ve also had to stomach a higher price increase than originally flagged up.
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(News report from Issue No. 158, published on Oct. 30 2013)
OCT. 29 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — In its annual global assessment of how easy, or difficult, it is to conduct business in different countries, the World Bank ranked Azerbaijan at 70th position alongside Turkey and Greece. Azerbaijan scored well for having a relatively low number of processes that need completing to create a new business.
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(News report from Issue No. 158, published on Oct. 30 2013)
OCT. 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The size of Azerbaijan’s non-oil sector has grown by 10.4% since last year, the country’s statistics department said quoting figures comparing the first nine months of this year with the same period in 2012. Expanding the non-oil sector is considered key to sustaining Azerbaijan’s economic expansion.
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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)
OCT. 16 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russia signed into law an agreement with the Uzbek government that it hopes will defend Russian businesses in Uzbekistan.
The statement on the Russian government website was vague but also unequivocal. It said simply that the agreement would boost investments between Russia and Uzbekistan.
Uzbekistan has developed a reputation for being a notoriously difficult country for private companies to operate in. Businesses talk of intimidation from the authorities, police raids and unscheduled tax inspections.
Earlier this year Russian mobile operator MTS closed down its Uzbek subsidiary after a series of run-ins with the authorities.
This month VimpelCom, MTS’s main Russian rival, also complained of unscheduled tax inspections by the authorities in Tashkent.
So, the ratification by Russia’s government of an agreement with Uzbekistan to promote and protect each other’s business interests is, at least, timely. Time will tell just how useful it is too.
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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)
OCT. 22 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan plans to update all its 11 national airports to meet international standards by 2017, media quoted the deputy minister for communications and transport, Azat Bekturov, as saying. Mr Bekturov said the airport at Kokshetau, northern Kazakhstan, had already been upgraded.
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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)
OCT. 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A mob of 200 people attacked the office of Manas Resources, an Australian mining company, in southern Kyrgyzstan where it is developing a gold mine, Reuters reported. Over the past few years, disgruntled nationalists have targeted foreign-owned mines to win concessions from companies and to destabilise the government.
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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)
OCT. 17 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kcell, Kazakhstan’s largest mobile operator, added nearly 175,000 subscribers in the third quarter of 2013, the company said. Controlled by Sweden’s TeliaSonera, Kcell now has 14.25m subscribers. The importance of the Kcell data is that it shows the mobile sector in Kazakhstan is still growing.
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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)
OCT. 17 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Switzerland has ruled that the Tajik Aluminium Company (TALCO), Tajikistan’s largest industrial project, breached contracts with RusAl, the Russia-based aluminium company in 2003, media reported. The court ordered TALCO to pay costs of $275m. A spokesman for TALCO said it would appeal the ruling.
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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)