Tag Archives: business

UN sends labour observers to Uzbekistan

OCT. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Doubts are emerging over whether observer from the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) will be able to investigate effectively whether Uzbekistan still uses children to harvest its cotton.

Eight teams of monitors from the ILO have been in Uzbekistan since Sept. 23. Their job is to travel around the regions and detail any incidences of child labour.

Bowing to worldwide pressure, Uzbekistan last year pledged to give up using children to pick cotton. This year it invited the ILO to send teams to watch the harvest.

But reports are now leaking out that Uzbek officials may be working hard to give the UN monitors the run-around. Media and Uzbek opposition groups have said that because the ILO monitors are cooperating with the Uzbek authorities, their movements are tracked.

This means that officials can warn teachers when the ILO monitors are approaching, giving them time to usher their pupils from the fields back into the classroom.

Picking cotton is a labour intensive task, so if Uzbekistan has really stopped using children, who is harvesting it instead?

Not medical staff, the podrobno.uz website quoted Abdulkhakimov Hodzhibayev, a senior doctor, as saying. He was responding to reports that doctors and nurses were picking cotton instead of carrying out medical duties.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)

Kashagan resumes production in Kazakhstan

OCT. 8 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kashagan oil field in the Caspian Sea, vital to Kazakhstan’s long term energy plan, has resumed production after a gas leak halted operations for a week, media quoted energy minister Sauat Mynbayev as saying. He said Kashagan was now producing 61,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd). Commercial output is considered 75,000bpd.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)

Tax on cigarettes to increase in Kazakhstan

OCT. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan plans to triple excise duty on cigarettes and alcohol over the next three years, media quoted economy minister Yerbolat Dossayev as saying. Currently a carton of 1,000 cigarettes carries a duty of 1,550 tenge ($10). This could rise to 5,000 tenge by 2016, Mr Dossayev said.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)

Azerbaijan receives World Bank loan

OCT. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The World Bank has approved a $53.25m loan to Azerbaijan’s agriculture sector, the head of its office in Baku Larisa Leshchenko told media. The loan will be used to improve agricultural businesses’ access to finance and to also modernise equipment. Azerbaijan has made boosting its agriculture sector a priority.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)

Refinery shuts down for upgrades in Kazakhstan

OCT. 8 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Shymkent refinery, one of three in Kazakhstan, has closed for a month for planned upgrade work, PetroKazakhstan, the plant owner, said. Kazakhstan has been experiencing increasing pressure on petrol supplies throughout the country this year. The government plans to build a new refinery.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)

Uzbekistan to export fertiliser to China

OCT. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan is negotiating a deal to export 100,000 tonnes of fertiliser to China every year, Russian news agency RIA-Novosti reported. Three years ago Uzbekistan built a potash fertiliser plant with 200,000 tonnes of annual capacity. It wants to increase capacity at the plant.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)

Protest erupts in Kyrgyzstan’s main gold mine

OCT. 7 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Around 200 people protested in east Kyrgyzstan against a potential deal between the Kyrgyz government and Toronto-listed Centerra Gold over ownership of the Kumtor Gold mine. Media reported that the protesters kidnapped the regional governor briefly. Anti-government groups are likely to have organised the protests.

(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)

IMF forecasts strong growth for Kyrgyzstan

OCT. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The IMF has predicted strong economic growth for Kyrgyzstan because of rising output at the Kumtor gold mine, Reuters reported. Kumtor is Kyrgyzstan’s largest industrial asset. Problems with the pit at Kumtor slowed production last year. This year, the IMF said, Kyrgyzstan’s GDP would grow by nearly 8%.

(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)

Kazakhstan increases harvest forecast

SEPT. 30 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan has increased its grain harvest forecast for 2013 to 18.5m tonnes from around 16m tonnes, media reported quoting agriculture minister Asylzhan Mamytbekov. The grain harvest has become an increasingly important part of Kazakhstan’s economy. In 2011 it harvested a post-Soviet record of 27m tonnes of grain.

(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)

India continues to deal with Kazakhstan

SEPT. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Indian officials have been negotiating with their Kazakh counterparts to buy into various energy projects since missing out on a stake in the Kashagan Caspian Sea oil field earlier this year, media reported. India thought it had secured an 8.3% share of Kashagan for $5b only for Kazakhstan to hand the stake to China.

(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)