FEB. 26 2020 (The Bulletin) — In 2019, constructors in Tajikistan built 24% more buildings than they did in 2018, Tajik media reported. Tajikistan, and especially Dushanbe, is going through something of a construction boom, fueled by cheap loans from China.
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— This story was first published in issue 438 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin
— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020
DEC. 28 2019 (The Bulletin) — Uzbek president Shavkat Mirziyoyev officially opened a new Chinese-built chemical production complex near Navoi in the centre of the country. Mr Mirziyoyev said that the plant had “changed Uzbekistan’s dependence on imports of PVC, caustic soda, and created a large number of new jobs”. It also further cements China’s influence, in business and politics, in Uzbekistan.
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— This story was first published in issue 433 of the weekly Bulletin on Jan. 13 2020
— Copyright owned by the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin
TBILISI/Jan. 9 2020 (The Bulletin) — The Georgian government cancelled a $2.5b contract to build Georgia’s largest deep-water port at Anaklia on the Black Sea because it said that finances for the consortium which had taken on the project were too flimsy.
Critics of the government, though, accused it of turning the country’s biggest infrastructure projects into a political weapon. One of the key consortium partners is TBC Bank which was set up by Mamuka Khazaradze who is currently standing trial, accused of corruption.
“The Anaklia Port Project is owned by the state, it is not owned by any private investors,” Maia Tskitishvili, Georgia’s minister for regional development and infrastructure, said when she announced that the contract, held by the Anaklia Development Consortium (ADC), would be cancelled . “By the end of 2020, we had to have a port in operation but as you can see, we will not get this result.”
She said ADC, led by TBC Bank had failed to replenish capital of $120m or attract a loan of $400m from international banks. ADC disagreed, though, and said that it had secured loan pledges from international banks such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). It said that these pledges had been undermined because the government had failed to guarantee to potential investors that they would get their money back is the project collapsed.
ADC said it would take the government to arbitration over the Anaklia contract.
Georgia has framed this project, conceived in 2014 under the current Georgian Dream coalition, as a vital piece of infrastructure needed to boost its status on the east-west transit corridor that China has dubbed the Belt and Road project.
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— This story was first published in issue 433 of the weekly Bulletin on Jan. 13 2020
— Copyright owned by the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin
DEC. 19 2019 (The Bulletin) — A landslip killed six labourers working on the construction of a metro extension in Tashkent. The fast pace of development in the region has pushed up fatalities on construction sites this year. Safety standards in both Central Asia and the South Caucasus are considered lax.
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— This story was first published in issue 432 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 27 2019
Copyright owned by the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin
DEC. 17 2019 (The Bulletin) — Georgia’s government extended to Dec. 31 a deadline for the partners developing the Anaklia port on the Black Sea to submit new loan agreements after they missed a Dec. 16 deadline. The Anaklia was supposed to be the biggest infrastructure project built in Georgia, opening it up to more East-West cargo traffic, but instead each side has accused the other of undermining progress. The partners are TBC Holding, the US’ SSA Marine, Britain’s Wondernet Express and Bulgaria’s G-Star.
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— This story was first published in issue 432 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 27 2019
Copyright owned by the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin
NOV. 27 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s government is considering introducing a law that would force cement producers to measure and monitor their air pollution. The move is an indication that governments in the region may start to take more seriously the issue of worsening air quality. Other the past few years, Central Asia’s cities have become choked with car exhaust fumes and factory smog. Feeding demand from a booming construction industry, Uzbekistan’s cement sector is one of its fastest-growing industries.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.
Aug. 2 (The Bulletin) — The Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved a $415m grant to build a major section of a new north-south highway across Georgia. The 23km Kvesheti-Kobi Road is part of a series of upgrades to infrastructure in Georgia that the government has highlighted as a priority.
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— This story was first published in issue 418 of the weekly Bulletin
TBILISI/July 16 (The Bulletin) — Another worker in Tbilisi died on a construction site, at least the 13th construction worker to die in Georgia this year.
Reports said that 16-year-old George Beshkenadze fell down the liftshaft of a 14-storey construction building that he had been working on in central Tbilisi.
Campaigners have said that safety measures on Georgian construction sites are notoriously slack. At least six construction workers in Tbilisi have already died this year on sites and in January, seven men were killed in their sleep at the apartment they shared in central Tbilisi by a carbon monoxide leak.
The authorities have said that they will also investigate how the company managing the site where Beshkenadze died was able to hire a teenager.
The law doesn’t ban companies from hiring 16-year-olds, but they are not allowed to do hard manual job
until they are 18.
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— This story was first published in issue 417 of the weekly Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin
JAN. 26 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan started work on construction of a $2.3 four-lane motorway that will run across the sandy Kara Kum desert and connect Ashgabat with Uzbekistan.
Serdar Berdymukhamedov, the son of President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and widely regarded as his heir, launched the construction, highlighting its prominence. The project is seen as a continuation of Turkmenistan’s government policy to try to kickstart its economy through a combination of spending cuts on services and prestige infrastructure projects which aim to generate thousands of jobs and additional revenue.
Turkmen officials have said that the road, the biggest ever built in Turkmenistan, will also build up its position as a prominent stage-post for trade routes running across Central Asia.
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>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.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019