MAY 9 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan has ordered 1,350 pieces of equipment from US tractor maker John Deere, media reported. The first equipment to arrive in Ashgabat were 50 combine harvesters. More equipment is expected later this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 328, published on May 12 2017)
MAY 5 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan has said that it is prepared to send extra electricity to Iran in the event of a shortfall, media reported. The offer is more evidence, if more was needed, of the interlocking nature of the economies and markets of Central Asia, the South Caucasus and Iran. It also underlines how Azerbaijan has transformed itself over the last few years from an electricity importer to an electricity exporter.
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(News report from Issue No. 328, published on May 12 2017)
TBILISI, MAY 8 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia Healthcare Group reported a surge in revenue linked to its new pharmaceuticals business, underlining its position as one of the Central Asia/South Caucasus region’s best-performing stocks.
Shortly after announcing that revenue in the first quarter of the year had more than doubled to 186.6m lari ($76.5m) from 72.6m lari in 2016, Georgia Healthcare Group shares listed on the London Stock Exchange hit 370p. This was just shy of an all-time high of 379p reached earlier this year.
In a statement Georgian Healthcare, whose core business is running hospitals and health services, said that the addition of a pharmaceutical business had boosted its revenue.
“Our key focus during the first quarter of 2017 has been to ensure the successful integration of the newly-acquired Pharmadepot business,” it said in a statement.
Georgia Healthcare said it had a 29% share of the pharmaceuticals sector. It is Georgia’s largest healthcare provider, operating over 2,500 hospital beds, 23% of the market.
Georgia’s healthcare system has been revolutionized by the Georgian Dream government who introduced a variant of the Universal Healthcare model in 2013.
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(News report from Issue No. 328, published on May 12 2017)
MAY 11 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA), the biggest bank in the country and vital to its economy, said it had missed interest payments on loans, another sign it is struggling to stay solvent under the weight of mounting bad debt.
Azerbaijani finance minister Samir Sharifov also appealed to creditors to be patient while IBA restructured its debt. He said the bank would not pay interest on liabilities until this process was complete.
In the US, IBA applied for protection under Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code. This protects the bank from being pursued by creditors while it restructures its debt.
Analysts have said all year that IBA is in serious danger of collapsing. In January, the government increased its stake in the bank to 76.7% from 55% in an admission that without state support the bank would fail.
Azerbaijan’s economy has been hit hard by a collapse in oil prices since 2014.
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(News report from Issue No. 328, published on May 12 2017)
MAY 8 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan has established an ombudsman of sorts to promote business interests, media reported. Under a decree signed by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the new body will promote dialogue between businesses and various state bodies. Businesses have been urging Mr Mirziyoyev, president since September last year, to improve the business environment.
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(News report from Issue No. 328, published on May 12 2017)
MAY 8 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Iranian officials said they were ready to sue Turkmenistan in an international arbitration court for cutting gas supplies this winter, ramping up tension between the neighbours.
The announcement highlights just how far relations between Iran and Turkmenistan have splintered since Turkmen officials said last year that Iran hadn’t paid a $1.8b bill for gas delivered in 2007 and 2008.
In a statement quoted by Iranian media, Hamid Reza Araqi, managing director of the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC), said Turkmenistan had failed its commitments.
“The price of gas, the damage they inflicted on Iran in winter by cutting off gas supplies, and the quality of gas delivered to Iran are three cases claimed by Iran,” he was quoted as saying. “Iran’s documents are ready to be submitted to the International Court of Arbitration.”
To some extent the row shows the strain an economic downturn has put countries and their leaders under. Before Turkmen officials accused Iran of reneging on bills, relations had been improving every month. As well as gas supplies Turkmen electricity was being imported, political links had been strengthened and there was talk of Iran providing Turkmenistan with access to the Persian Gulf through a swap system.
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(News report from Issue No. 328, published on May 12 2017)
MAY 5 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan has offered to sell uranium to Brazil to cover a shortfall in Brazilian production, media reported quoting Kazakh deputy foreign minister Yerzhan Ashikbayev. Reports said that he had met with Brazilian officials who were looking for help to feed its two nuclear power stations with uranium. Brazil has abundant supplies of unmined uranium but miners have struggled to win environmental licenses to mine it, forcing the power stations to import most of the uranium.
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(News report from Issue No. 328, published on May 12 2017)
TBILISI, MAY 12 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — While success and failure in Georgia’s acrimonious political arena are fragile, support for the Georgian Dream’s Universal Healthcare system has been consistently high.
Introduced in 2013, its advocates say that it has increased people’s access to healthcare and also given private companies such as Georgian Healthcare Group a huge boost.
In a survey by the International Republican Institute, 19% of respondents said that reforming the health service was the best thing that the government has done since winning power in 2012. The next most popular answer was achieving visa-free access to the EU, identified as important by 4% of respondents.
What the Georgian Dream government did was simple, said George Gotsadze, director of the Curatio International Foundation. He explained that it created a state- funded healthcare system that replaced an insurance-based system that only half the population had opted into.
“Prior to 2013, with public financing healthcare coverage was provided for 1.6m people out of 3.7m. The Universal Health Programme pretty much-expanded coverage to all the population of Georgia,” he said.
The government has also, effectively, cut out the middlemen insurers. It picks up the bills and pays the hospitals, run by private companies such as Georgian Healthcare Group, directly. In 2018, the Georgian government is expected to spend 3.1b lari on healthcare, up from 2.1b lari in 2015.
Most Georgians have seen a jump in the quality of their healthcare.
Teona, a Tbilisi resident gave birth to a premature child when she was six months pregnant. She said that she had incurred almost no expenses.
“My daughter was in an incubator for a long time. All I had to do was to bring diapers [nappies],” she said.
And this strategy has also spurred a major boom for business. Since 2013, Georgian Healthcare Group has expanded rapidly and now operates 35 hospitals. Spun off by Bank of Georgia, it listed on the London Stock Exchange in November 2015. Its shares have risen from 170p to 370p.
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(News report from Issue No. 328, published on May 12 2017)
APRIL 29 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Bilateral trade between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan has increased by 37% already, Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev said at a meeting with Uzbek president Shavkat Mirziyoyev in the south of the country. He was comparing the first three months of this year to the same period in 2016. Mr Mirziyoyev has made improving relations with Uzbekistan’s neighbours one of his main policy initiatives since taking over in September last year.
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(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)
MAY 2 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan wants to act as the OPEC of the uranium world, manipulating prices with its supply- side dominance, Samruk Kazyna director Berik Beisengaliyev said in an interview with Bloomberg News. Samruk Kazyna is the Kazakh sovereign wealth fund which owns 100% of nuclear agency Kazatomprom. Kazatomprom mines 40% of the world’s uranium. Earlier this year it said it would cut output, sending depressed uranium prices up.
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(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)