JULY 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s foreign currency reserves increased by $100m in May, the Central Bank told media. The increase shows that pressure on the dram has reduced. Last year, the Central Bank spent a third of its reserves defining the dram.
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(News report from Issue No. 238, published on July 2 2015)
JUNE 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – DUSHANBE – Remittances from Tajik workers in Russia to Tajikistan have dropped by 44% this year, the Russian Central Bank said.
This is inline with World Bank projections and highlights the economic problems facing Tajikistan and other countries in Central Asia. Russia’s economy has dipped into recession because of a combination of falling oil prices and economic sanctions imposed by the West in retaliation for the Kremlin’s alleged support for rebels in east Ukraine.
And this recession has hit Tajikistan and other countries in Central Asia hard. Remittances account for roughly half of Tajikistan’s economy.
In Dushanbe, the mood on the streets was glum.
Amirbek Saidbekov, a Dushanbe resident, said life had gotten harder.
“The money they send home has declined by about a half,” he said. “The money my uncle sends is not enough to provide for his family. The life quality of his family has worsened now.”
Shuhrat Murodilloev, a Dushanbe-based political scientist, said the drop in remittance was having a knock-on effect.
“Market employment is falling because of the decreased sales and the unstable Tajik currency,” he said. “Many people have lost their jobs in the market because there is no money coming from Russia.”
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(News report from Issue No. 238, published on July 2 2015)
JUNE 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s Central Bank has been steadily rebuilding its gold and foreign currency reserves since reaching a low in April, media reported. Last year Kyrgyzstan’s Central Bank spent frantically as it tried to prop up its falling currency.
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(News report from Issue No. 238, published on July 2 2015)
JUNE 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan increased its gold reserves for the 32nd month in a row, the IMF said. Kazakhstan’s gold reserves measure 203.4 tonnes. Despite spending heavily to protect the tenge, the Kazakh Central Bank has maintained its policy of buying gold.
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(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Prices manufacturers in Georgia are paying to produce their goods are rising at the fastest rate since 2011, the national statistics agency said, sparking concern that underlying inflation may also be accelerating.
Georgia’s Central Bank has said it wants to fight off the effects of regional economic turmoil and the falling value of its lari currency and keep inflation under control.
But Geostat, the Georgian statistics agency, said its Producer Price Index (PPI) rose by 0.8% in May from April, registering an increase of 9% from May 2014.
“Manufacturing prices increased 11.1% contributing 9.05 percentage points to the overall index growth,” Geostat said of the PPI growth rate figures.
“The prices mainly increased for manufacture of food products, beverages and tobacco products (16.9%), manufacture of paper and publishing (30.4%) and manufacture of basic metals and fabricated metal products (4.0%).”
The 9% year-on-year increase in May was the highest inflation in prices paid by producers since 2011 when the economies were recovering from the 2008/9 global financial crisis and price inflation was a major concern. Now inflation, triggered by a falling lari, is once again a headache that the Central Bank has to confront.
The lari has lost around 20% of its value this year. The Georgian Central Bank has been putting up interest rates to try to strengthen its currency and dampen inflationary pressures.
Geostat’s Consumer Price Index measured a jump in inflation of 0.6% in May, measuring a rise to 3.5% of year-on-year inflation, its highest since September 2014.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Fuel prices in Kyrgyzstan are rising, media reported quoting the Kyrgyz Association of fuel traders. They said extra tax imposed by the Kyrgyz government had triggered the rise. Kyrgyzstan is also facing general inflation due to the falling value of its currency.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s foreign exchange reserves fell by $37.4m in May to $2.4b, the Central Bank said. Georgia has sold foreign currency reserves to prop up its lari currency.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s foreign currency reserves inched up in May for the first time in a year, according to Central Bank data, suggesting that pressure on its manat currency had eased off. Like other countries in the region, Azerbaijan has been fighting to maintain the strength of its currency.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Oleg Smolyakov, deputy chairman of Kazakhstan’s Central Bank, said a change of monetary policy to target inflation instead of a stable exchange rate would not be possible within the next couple of years, the first sign of a row back on the high- profile strategy.
The potential row-back will disappoint businesses and international observers who have urged the Kazakh Central Bank to allow its tenge currency to float more freely.
“We believe that we cannot afford switching to inflation targeting within a time range of one to two years,” media quoted Mr Smolyakov as saying.
This is a departure from the bullish declaration by Central Bank chief Kairat Kelimbetov who said Kazakhstan would liberalise its currency market.
According to Mr Smolyakov, Kazakhstan needs more tools to switch from the current currency corridor to targeting inflation. A sharp fall in the value of the Russian rouble since last summer has pressured currencies and economies across the region.
Also, seemingly eager to smooth public concerns over a volatile currency, Mr Smolyakov said the Kazakh tenge would remain stable with oil prices over $50 per barrel.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijanis have lost confidence in the manat currency since a 33% devaluation earlier this year, eurasinet.org reported. It said dollar accounts in Azerbaijan now made up 70% of the total, the highest proportion in a decade.
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(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)