JAN. 24 (The Conway Bulletin) — KAZ Minerals, the Kazakhstan-focused London-listed copper producer, announced results that showed production that was 294 kilotons of copper, 17% higher in 2018 than in 2017, pushing up its share price. The production figure was at the top end of guidance previously given by the company.
END
>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 22 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a decree that should lead to the privatisation of the country’s main gold producer the Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Company (NMMC). The decree said that NMMC should be privatised by December 2019. NMMC and Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Company (AMMC) produce an estimated 80% of Uzbekistan’s gold.
END
>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
YEREVAN/Jan. 24 (The Conway Bulletin) — The United States imposed sanctions on an Armenian company for the first time over its dealings with an Iranian airline that Washington said flies units of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards in and out of a civil war in Syria.
In a statement, the US Treasury Department said Yerevan-based Flight Travel was the third company to be sanctioned for working with Iran’s Mahan Air and that any assets linked to it or its executives in the US will be frozen. Last year it also sanctioned a company in Malaysia and another in Thailand.
“The designation of Flight Travel LLC demonstrates the US Government’s commitment to denying foreign support for Mahan Air and other designated Iranian airlines, and reinforces multiple warnings to the aviation community of the sanctions risk for individuals and entities maintaining commercial relationships with these airlines,” it said.
The US Treasury Department said Flight Travel provides ticketing, financial and administrative services to Mahan Air, which flies to Yerevan as well as to other cities in the region, Europe and China.
In Yerevan, Bella Gevorgyan, named as Flight Travel’s director, said that she was frustrated.
“I think it is not right to impose sanctions against Armenian citizens working with its neighbour country,” she told the Aysor.am news website.
For Armenia’s instinctively Western-orientated government, the US sanctions on Iran, imposed last year, are a headache. Surrounded on two sides by its arch-enemies Turkey and Azerbaijan, Armenia is drawn into dealing with Iran, its far larger southern neighbour.
And over the past few years, Armenia and Iran have deepened ties. Iranians, tourists and businessmen, have also become far more conspicuous in Yerevan.
In October, when John Bolton, US President Donald Trump’s security adviser, travelled to Yerevan, Baku and Tbilisi to explain the impact of sanctions, Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan told him that his country would continue to deal with Iran and with Iranian companies.
END
>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 29 (The Conway Bulletin) — Centerra Gold, the Toronto-listed company that owns the Kumtor mine in Kyrgyzstan, said that the Kyrgyz government had asked it to extend an agreement first hammered out in September 2017 by four months to the end of May 2019. The agreement essentially secures Centerra Gold’s ownership over the mine. Kumtor has been the focus of a long-running row between Centerra and Kyrgyzstan, which is a shareholder in Centerra. Last year, a rival AIM-listed British gold company also put forward a bid for Kumtor.
END
>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
TBILISI/Jan. 30 (The Conway Bulletin) — Seven construction workers living in a single-room apartment in Tbilisi died from carbon monoxide poisoning, bringing to 13 the number of people killed in the Georgian capital this month from gas leaks or explosions.
Only a few days earlier ministers had said that they wanted to make gas leak sensors obligatory in residential apartments. Georgian media said that the foreman from the construction site that the men were working discovered their dead bodies when he went to investigate why they hadn’t turned up to work.
Earlier this month a gas explosion killed four people and a gas leak killed two people in Tbilisi. Campaigners have said that although Georgia is experiencing a construction boom off the back of a growing economy and a booming tourism sector, it has lagged behind on safety standards.
Last year, two tourists from Oman also died from carbon monoxide poisoning in their Tbilisi hotel room. Media reports said that in 2016-18, 87 people died from carbon monoxide poisoning in Georgia.
Georgia’s construction industry will also come under scrutiny. In 2018 there were several deaths from accidents on construction sites and questions will be asked as to why seven workers were sharing a one-room apartment. Media reported that a makeshift boiler was the cause of the leak that killed the seven men. Georgia’s interior ministry declined to say whether they were migrant workers or Georgians.
Kazakh company KazTransGaz supplies gas to residential blocks in the city. It issued a statement denying any responsibility for the accident.
END
>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
ALMATY/Jan. 29 (The Conway Bulletin) — — The Kazakh government will bail out Tsesnabank, the country’s second-largest bank, for the second time in six months, once again highlighting the fragility of Kazakhstan’s financial system.
The $1.6b bailout prompted an outburst from President Nursultan Nazarbayev that finance officials and the Central Bank were “cowards” and were not doing enough to protect the system from conflicts of interests and poor bank owners.
“You are just cowards, not cabinet ministers!” Reuters quoted Mr Nazarbayev telling cabinet ministers and Central Bank officials at a meeting. “Are your hands and knees shaking too much to make a decision? What are you doing here then?”
Mr Nazarbayev is particularly sensitive about the strength of Kazakhstan’s banks. He ordered the Central Bank to tighten up its regulations of the banks after the 2008/9 Global Financial Crisis, when the Kazakh government had to buy a handful of bankrupt banks, but an economic downturn in 2014/17 showed up the sector’s continued weakness.
Some banks did prove resilient in the downturn, but the government was still forced to bail out some the more heavily-indebted larger banks and also allow a handful of smaller banks to go bankrupt.
This has hit the government’s resources, dented its wider image for financial competence and worried ordinary people who have drawn down their bank deposits.
Tsesnabank, which is owned by Adilbek Zhaksybekov, received a $1.2b bailout in September. Mr Zhaksybekov is a close confidant of Mr Nazarbayev and his former Chief-of-Staff.
END
>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 23 (The Conway Bulletin) — Foreign ambassadors and senior government officials in Kazakhstan opened the largest solar power plant in the region at Saran in the centre of the country. The $137m project was funded by the EBRD and has the capacity to generate 100MW of power. At the opening, Kazakh Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev, said that the government wants to generate 3% of its power through renewable energy by 2020, 20% by 2030 and 50% by 2050.
END
>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 29 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s Ardshinbank signed a $35m loan facility deal with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), arranged through Citi. This is the second similar deal organised between the three banks. Adrshinbank is one of the biggest banks in Armenia and, like its rivals has increased funding to small and medium-sized businesses.
END
>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
TBILISI/Jan. 25 (The Conway Bulletin) — Investor business groups in Georgia described the perception of Georgia’s legal system as “extremely negative” in a letter to PM Mamuka Bakhtadze as a row over nominations for judges to the Supreme Court intensifies.
Georgian civic groups have also complained about the nominations of 10 judges to the Supreme Court in December by the High Court of Judges.
In the letter, the American Chamber of Commerce in Georgia, the Business Association of Georgia, the EU Georgian Business Council and the International Chamber of Commerce in Georgia said the nominees have made “questionable decisions” in previous cases.
“The selection of Supreme Court judicial nominees, without a fair, transparent and predictable process reinforces the extremely negative perception of the Georgian judiciary and court system that is held by many observers,” the letter said.
END
>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 23 (The Conway Bulletin) — Qatar Airways said it had started flying cargo planes to Almaty, boosting the ambitions of Kazakhstan’s financial centre of becoming a major transit hub. Almaty will receive a Qatar cargo plane twice a week. First from Doha and then returning from Hong Kong back to Doha. Central Asian cities are looking to become trade hubs between Europe and East Asia.
END
>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019