Tag Archives: business

Kazakhstan relaxes visa rules

JAN. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan lifted visa restrictions on dozens of countries from Jan. 1 in a bid to increase tourism. Citizens of all EU states and countries belonging to the OECD can now travel to Kazakhstan without a visa for 30 days. The visa-free regime has also been extended to citizens of Malaysia, Singapore and the UAE. It had dropped visa requirements for 10 countries from July 2014.

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(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)

Azerbaijan extends BP deal

DEC. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan has extended a deal made with a BP-led consortium dubbed the ‘Contract of the Century’ to develop its biggest Caspian Sea oil fields. The extension, although expected, had been delayed by arguments between the partners and a row with the Azerbaijani government over a drop in output at the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshly fields (ACG). ACG is the lynchpin of Azerbaijan’s economy. The BP-led consortium will now develop the fields until 2050. The original deal had been due to expire in 2014.

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(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)

Trump cancels Tower project in Georgia

TBILISI, JAN.4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Trump Organisation, the company running the businesses of President-elect Donald Trump, pulled out of a $250m deal to build a 47-storey apartment block in Batumi on Georgia’s Black Sea coast.

Last month, the company also pulled out of projects in Azerbaijan and Brazil to protect Mr Trump’s image. In truth, though, the Batumi project, signed in 2012, lost momentum after former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili lost power in elections in 2012 and 2013.

The project was generally derided as part of the showmanship of Mr Saakashvili, who had a talent for eye- catching initiatives.

In an email, Trump Organisation said: “[We’ve decided] to formally end the development of Trump Tower, Batumi.”

The Silk Road Group, an industrial conglomerate that was partnering Trump in the project , said it would push ahead with the development.

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(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)

Turkmenistan cuts gas supplies to Iran

JAN. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan cut gas supplies to Iran, Iranian media reported quoted Iranian officials, straining what had been considered to be a budding regional relationship. In December Turkmenistan had accused Iran of owing it $2b for unpaid gas. Iran has denied this and said that the debt had been settled or was on the way to being settled. It has now said that it will sue Turkmenistan. The row is important because relations between Iran and Turkmenistan have been improving for some time, lending weight to Turkmenistan’s mission to become a regional gas powerhouse.

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(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)

Chinese miner operates in Kyrgyzstan

DEC. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Chinese company Full Gold Mining produced its first batch of concentrated gold at its Ishtamberdy gold deposit in Kyrgyzstan’s southeast region of Jalabad, the Kyrgyz government said. The project had stalled since 2011 because of a series of anti-mining protests and demonstrations against excessive Chinese control over Kyrgyzstan’s industry.

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(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)

Nicklaus prepares to build golf course in Turkmenistan

DEC. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an interview with the AP news agency, US golfing legend Jack Nicklaus said that he has made five trips to Turkmenistan since agreeing to design a golf course in the country earlier this year. He said that he is building two courses – a championship course and a learners’ course, at the Turkmen Black Sea coast resort of Awaza. He said that the course should be playable from July.

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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)

China to build textile factory in Kazakhstan

DEC. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — An investment company representing Xianyang city in central China and Kazakhstan’s Khlopkoprom-Cellulose plan to jointly build a textile factory in southern Kazakhstan, they said at a press conference. The factory will cost $100m to build and will create 2,000 jobs. The factory would be operational by 2019 and, if it does materialise, will please international economists who have been urging Kazakhstan to diversify its economic base away from mining and hyrdocarbons. Khlopkoprom- Cellulose is a factory already operating near the site that the new plant would occupy. It produces cotton products used in the medical sector.

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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)

Georgian puppet theatre moves

DEC. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — After five years without a permanent home, the Tbilisi State Puppet Theatre, considered one of the best puppet theatres in the former Soviet Union, said that it was moving into a new home. Georgia’s ministry of culture is to build a new theatre for the group which should open in 2018.

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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)

EBRD loans Kazakhstan €200m to develop renewables

ALMATY, DEC. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) pledged to give Kazakh businessmen 200m euros to improve the country’s renewable energy sector.

For the EBRD the motivation is to boost Kazakhstan’s green energy production. Solar and wind generate only around 1% of Kazakhstan’s power at the moment. Hydro produces around 13% of its power and the rest is generated by smoke belching coal-powered stations.

“Once all the projects come on- stream, annual CO2 emissions are expected to reduce by about 600,000 tonnes, which would help the country to achieve its commitments to cut emissions under the Paris climate agreement,” the EBRD said in a statement.

The 2015 Paris Agreement was a global deal to cut carbon emissions.

Kazakhstan may once have turned its nose up at taking EBRD cash to produce green energy. Now, though, it is happy to go along with the concept. It is struggling to see off a steep economic downturn that has hit its revenues. Oil and gas are its major exports but prices have halved.

And, alongside a fall in revenues, Kazakhstan also needs to boost power. Its population has swelled and grown richer, demanding more power.

It still needs to replace a nuclear power station that was decommissioned in the 1990s. Plans to build a replacement have been scrapped for the time being and a thermal power plant that was being built on the shores of Lake Balkhash with South Korea has also been ditched this year because it was too expensive.

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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)

Tajikistan prepares $490m rescue plan for failing banks

DEC. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s government said it would spend $490m, around a fifth of its total budget, on rescuing its banking sector from collapse.

It will pump the cash mainly into Tajikistan’s two biggest lenders, Agroinvestbank and Tojiksodirot- bank, to boost their liquidity and protect them from bankruptcy.

Both banks have neared collapse this year, only being saved by previous government bailouts. Earlier this month, Tojiksodirotbank was taken out of administration. It had been run by Central Bank officials since May.

Two smaller banks, Tajprombank and Fononbank, will also receive funds.

Abdusalom Kurbanov, the Tajik finance minister, said the government had no choice but to intervene heavily to save the banks.

“This decision is aimed at the sustainable development of the banking system, the preservation of public confidence in the banks and the return of deposits,” media quoted him as saying.

Tajikistan is the most remittance- dependent country in the world and a recession in Russia has sucked its economy dry. Its somoni currency has also fallen apart over the past couple of years as the US dollar strengthens and low commodity prices continue to undermine confidence in Emerging Markets.

Earlier this year, a run on the banks in Tajikistan betrayed just how nervous people had become over the stability of the banks. Many ATMs ran out of cash.

Tajikistan has asked for advice from both the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the IMF, although it has yet to take any financial aid. This is probably because, despite a handful of missions to Dushanbe, the IMF and Tajikistan couldn’t agree on a set of conditions to guarantee the loan.

On a visit to Central Asia in October, Juha Kahkonen, IMF deputy director for the Middle East and Central Asia, said that it had moved closer to agreeing conditions for a loan. It also described the state of the Tajik banking sector as dire.

“Discussions will continue in the coming weeks and we hope the programme can be agreed in the coming months,” he told Reuters on a trip to Almaty.

But he also said: “Their [Tajik banks] lending practices have not been very sound. Non-performing loans are about half of total loans.”

Central Bank data showed that the share of non-performing loans had risen to 58.7% of the banks’ loan portfolios from 37.8% in September.

Banking systems across the region are creaking. A Handful of smaller banks in Azerbaijan have gone bankrupt and several are under pressure in Kazakhstan. The region’s financial system has been fragile for years. After the 2008/9 Global Financial Crisis, Kazakh banks were left with one of the world’s biggest bad debt ratios, forcing the government to pump billions of dollars into the system.

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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)