Tag Archives: currency

Azerbaijan CBank sells US dollars

APRIL 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s Central Bank said it had spent more than $1b of its reserves defending the value of the manat currency since it devalued by a third in mid-February. The admission will be an embarrassment for the Central Bank as the devaluation was meant to relieve pressure on the manat and protect reserves.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)

Kyrgyz Central Bank spends to defend som

MARCH 31 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s Central Bank bought $11.4m worth of som to slow its devaluation, media reported, its third intervention in March. Kyrgyzstan, like other countries in the region, has been trying to manage a fall in the value of its currency.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)

Azerbaijani banks are burdening customers –IWPR

MARCH 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Banks in Azerbaijan are passing on costs triggered by the devaluation of the manat to their clients, the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) said.

The most vulnerable are people who took out loans in foreign currencies before the devaluation.

IWPR quoted local media which attributed two suicides to the devaluation and the sudden increased cost of repaying debt.

It also suggested that the commercial banks have been breaking the law by making people pay back loans at the new, weaker, exchange rate.

The IWPR quoted a Supreme Court judge saying that banks should continue to charge consumers the rate they took the loan out originally.

Experts have warned Azerbaijan that it needs to reduce consumers’ debt burdens to ensure its economic security.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)

Georgian Central Bank props up lari

MARCH 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Georgian Central Bank is continuing to support the lari currency, buying $40m to prop it up. This was the fourth Central Bank intervention to defend the lari currency this year. Since November, the lari has lost 29% of its value, media reported.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)

ADB warns Tajikistan of poor economic outlook

MARCH 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) sent a warning to all Central Asian economies, and in particular to Tajikistan, in its Asian Development Outlook report.

Landlocked and dependent on remittances from migrant workers, Tajikistan is particularly vulnerable to the present economic crisis, the ADB said.

The ADB said Tajikistan is expected to experience a deceleration in its GDP growth. This had averaged 9% between 2010-14 but will fall to 5%.

“The decline in remittances and the traditional exports of aluminum and cotton slowed growth in 2014 and inflation worsened to 6.1%,” it said.

The ADB is also expecting rampant inflation and a further devaluation of the somoni currency by 6.5%.

Remittances, mostly from Tajik workers in Russia, represent roughly half of its GDP. The rouble crisis has affected both the value of those transfers and the capacity of these workers to retain their jobs. The ADB also said that new legislation for migrant workers in Russia will hit Tajikistan’s earnings.

“Remittances will likely contract further in 2015 as new regulations require that migrants to the Russian Federation have Russian language proficiency, as well as medical tests and health insurance that are estimated to cost about $500 per Tajik migrant,” it said.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)

Divisions grow in Eurasian Economic Union

MARCH 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union’s (EEU) first year is shaping up to be one to forget.

A sharp devaluation in the value of the rouble, triggered by Western sanctions and falling oil prices, and meddling in Ukraine’s civil war have hit Russia’s credibility among its former Soviet partners. After a meeting in Astana, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev appeared to distance himself from the Kremlin.

Mr Nazarbayev hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko at the meeting. Armenia, the fourth member of the EEU, didn’t attend.

Mr Nazarbayev appeared to suggest that Mr Putin’s alleged support for rebels in eastern Ukraine had gone too far.

“It is important for any decisions that get made to rely on fundamental principles of international law. We are interested in Ukraine staying a stable, independent, territorially integral country,” he said.

Apparent tension at the meeting in Astana between the leaders wasn’t contained to Ukraine.

Mr Putin once again brought up the prospect of a single currency throughout the Eurasian Economic Union, something that Mr Nazarbayev has already ruled out.

“The time has come to start thinking about forming a currency union,” news reports quoted Mr Putin as saying. Mr Putin also suggested a Central Bank for the single currency could be based in Almaty.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)

Cheap Russian oil products hits Kazakh producer

MARCH 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Canada-based Condor Petroleum halted oil production at its Shoba oil field in west Kazakhstan because the oversupply of cheaper Russian oil products has dented domestic production.

A fall in oil prices and the imbalanced between the Russian rouble and the Kazakh tenge are hurting foreign energy companies in Kazakhstan. “Kazakhstan is experiencing an oversupply of refined oil products, including diesel, which is causing downward pricings pressures on domestically produced diesel and on crude oil,” Condor Petroleum said in a statement.

“Currently, Kazakhstan refineries are either not operating or the offering prices are below the Company’s cost of operations.”

This is, in effect, a criticism of the Kazakh government’s determination to defend the tenge despite the imbalance with the rouble.

Earlier this month a Kazakh official said important upgrade work to Kazakh refineries would have to be postponed because Russian oil products had destroyed their profitability.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)

Armenia issues $500m bond

MARCH 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia issued a 10-year $500m bond with a yield of 7.5%. Governments in Central Asia and the South Caucasus have been borrowing to offset a drop in their economies.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 224, published on March 25 2015)

Anti-devaluation protest in Baku

MARCH 15 2015 (The Bulletin) – Hundreds of people demonstrated in Baku against the devaluation by 33% of the manat currency last month. The size of the march was contested with its organisers saying 10,000 people attended and police saying there were a few hundred.
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 223, published on March 18 2015)

Kyrgyz som loses 5% of its value

MARCH 11 2015 (The Bulletin) – The Kyrgyz som has lost nearly 5% of its value against the US dollar this year, media quoted the head of the Central Bank, Tolkunbek Abdygulov, as saying. Mr Abdygulov also said that he wanted to impose strict capital requirements for Kyrgyzstan’s banks
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 223, published on March 18 2015)