Tag Archives: business

Georgia PM visits Tehran

APRIL 22/23 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili travelled to Tehran to meet with Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, underlining increasingly close Georgia-Iran ties. In a series of tweets after the meeting, Mr Kvirikashvili said that he had discussed developing trade and transport ties with Mr Hassan. His visit comes 10 days after Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Zarif visited Georgia as part of a Central Asia/South Caucasus tour.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Georgia considers VAT cut for domestic flights

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APRIL 26 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s government said that it was considering scrapping VAT on aviation fuel for planes flying domestic routes. While flights to and from international airports have boomed the domestic sector is considered underdeveloped. Scrapping VAT was one of a series of proposals under consideration to change tax mechanisms in Georgia. Other incentives being considered including giving help to small power stations.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Kcell posts upbeat economic assessment

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APRIL 26 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an upbeat assessment of the Kazakh economy, Kcell CEO Arti Ots said that Q1 2017 had been a period of stabilisation for the mobile operator. Service revenue, an important indicator of a mobile operator’s health, still fell but only by 1.5% while overall revenue was flat. Operating margins, though fell to 37% in Q1 2017 compared to 42% in Q1 2016, showing just how competitive the sector is. A price war has dented margins in Kazakhstan’s mobile market. Telia is a major shareholder in Kcell although it has said it wants to sell out of Central Asia.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Azerbaijan-focused Abershon to produce by 2019

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APRIL 25 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Abershon field in the Azerbaijani section of the Caspian Sea, operated by France’s Total, could start gas production in late 2019 or early 2020, an official at Azerbaijan’s state energy company Socar said. Aberson is considered to be a potentially major gas producer for Azerbaijan which is heavily reliant on the energy sector for revenue. The field was discovered in 2011.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Aviation liberalisation talks start between Armenia and EU

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APRIL 27 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia and the EU started the first round of negotiations over an aviation deal which analysts have said should depress air ticket prices to Europe from Yerevan and open up the market for Armenian airlines. Armenian airlines have struggled to stay solvent over the past few years, often blaming high landing tariffs. Armenia wants to join the EU’s common aviation space. This is, essentially, the free market mechanism that the EU has used to open up the aviation sector and allow airlines from any countries to fly between any cities with the area.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Yandex opens office in Kazakhstan

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APRIL 20 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Yandex, the Russian language search internet search engine, opened its first office in Kazakhstan, another sign of renewed confidence in the region’s economy. The office in Almaty is an effort by the Russian language search engine to boost advertising revenues from Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is the eighth office that Yandex has set up outside Russia. It said there are 5m hits on its search engine each day from Kazakhstan. Yandex has its own dedicated yandex.kz URL.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Iran pledges to develop hydro in Kyrgyzstan

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APRIL 20 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rounding off a three day tour of Central Asia and the South Caucasus, Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif said that Iran could help Kyrgyzstan develop its hydropower sector. Kyrgyzstan has been looking for partners to develop its hydropower sector ever since Russia pulled out of pledged investments during a recession in 2015/16. For Kyrgyzstan, electricity generated by hydropower is seen as a vital export. It has signed deals to sell electricity to Pakistan and India through the US-backed CASA-1000 scheme, due to come on line over the next couple of years. For Iran, investing in Kyrgyzstan’s hydro sector would help it develop links in the region.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Car production in Uzbekistan halves after tough 2016

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APRIL 27 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Car production in Uzbekistan halved in 2016, state-owned Uzavtoprom said, highlighting the problems that one of the country’s most high- profile industries is facing.

Data on car production in Uzbekistan, an important employer around the city of Andijan in the Ferghana Valley, is tightly controlled and for the state’s main car producer to admit that there is a problem means that it is nervous about its future.

Last year the GM Uzbekistan joint venture with US’s GM which is based at the Andijan plant produced 88,200 cars out of total Uzbek car production of 92,625.

There was no comment on the press release, although it was widely cited across Uzbek media.

Last year was a decidedly tough year for the Uzbek car industry. It is reliant for much of its sales on Russia which has been dealing with a recession triggered by a fall in energy prices and by Western imposed sanctions. Sales figures repeatedly reported a drop in demand of around 37%.

GM Uzbekistan also had problems with its distributors in Uzbekistan, with the life.ru website reporting in May 2016 that it may be forced to stop exports to Russia altogether because of the bankruptcy of its partner in the Voronezh region.

Since then, GM Uzbekistan has said that it is starting to export cars to both Tajikistan and Belarus, an apparent attempt to reduce its over- reliance on Russia for its market.

And there was also a corruption scandal that enveloped its top management. This included Tokhirjon Jalilov, who was arrested and sacked as chairman of GM Uzbekistan after allegedly being involved in a scam to sell cars to neighbouring Kazakhstan to a proxy company and then re-importing them back to Uzbekistan where they were sold to consumers.

The accusation was that the company’s management pocketed the difference.

GM owns 25% of GM Uzbekistan and Uzavtoprom owns 75%.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

India wants to boost cotton imports from Kazakhstan

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APRIL 20/21 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — At a meeting in the south Kazakh city of Shymkent, Kazakh and Indian officials pledged to increase cooperation in the cotton trade. Indian businessmen said that they wanted to increase the supply of cotton from Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan has been trying to develop its cotton sector over the past few years in a drive to move away from rely too heavily on the oil and gas sector.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Kazatomprom not impacted by bankruptcy, says agency

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APRIL 26 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazatomprom, Kazakhstan’s nuclear agency, said that it wouldn’t be affected by the bankruptcy last month of Toshiba’s US unit Westinghouse Electric because it had organised an option to sell its 10% stake back to Toshiba at the price it bought it for. Kazatomprom, the world’s biggest uranium miner, bought a 10% stake in Westinghouse in 2007 for $540m. Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy last month after cost overruns at four nuclear reactors it was building in the US.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)