MAY 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Officials from Kyrgyzstan flew to Moscow to discuss joining the Russia-led Customs Union either later this year or next year, media reported. Armenia is looking to join the economic bloc, which also includes Kazakhstan and Belarus, this year but Kyrgyzstan has stalled slightly.
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(News report from Issue No. 183, published on May 7 2014)
APRIL 17 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Joining the Russia-led Customs Union is the right thing for Kyrgyzstan, the country’s new PM, Djoomart Otorbayev, said in an interview with the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Mr Otorbayev’s statement is important as it underlines Kyrgyzstan’s drive to join the Customs Union.
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(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)
APRIL 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev attended a summit for the heads of state of the Customs Union (CU) in Minsk. The summit acted as a show of support for Russia which is facing sanctions on officials after the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea last month. Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan are CU members.
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(News report from Issue No. 182, published on April 30 2014)
APRIL 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — For Kyrgyzstan membership of the Customs Union, comprising Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, is looking ever less appetising.
Negotiations between Bishkek and the Customs Union countries at the beginning of the month failed to finalise the roadmap for the country’s accession and Kyrgyz officials have now stopped talking about entry in 2015.
At a minimum the Union’s highly protective tariffs would curtail Kyrgyzstan’s trade in re-exports with fellow WTO member China, worth up to 15% of its GDP.
Kyrgyz officials had been hoping to offset this with concessions on Chinese imports and a vague CU-financed stabilisation fund to promote domestic industries but with western sanctions on the horizon, Moscow no longer looks a model guarantor of Kyrgyzstan’s economic security.
Depending on the damage the Ukraine crisis reaps on the Russian economy, Bishkek may also fear for a series of keystone infrastructure projects the Kremlin had committed to investing in such as the Hydroelectric Power facility Kambar-Ata 2 and the civilian airport, Manas.
Long-term, migrant remittances, worth around a fifth of GDP according to the World Bank could also take a hit. The government’s one-time target of entry in 2015 now looks overly optimistic.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
MARCH 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia may be able to complete all the steps needed to join the Customs Union by the end of May, Armenian PM Tigran Sargsyan said. His announcement is the clearest indication so far of when Armenia hopes to join the Customs Union.
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(News report from Issue No. 177, published on March 26 2014)
MARCH 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russia’s transport minister, Maxim Sokolov, visited Yerevan and pledged an extra $50m investment in various joint-ventures, a sort of pre-Customs Union entry sweetener for Armenia. Pushing aside the EU’s advances, Armenia has agreed to join the Russia-led Customs Union later this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 176, published on March 19 2014)
MARCH 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russia’s move into Ukraine has given Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev some major problems.
He is friendly with Russia and its president Vladimir Putin. Kazakhstan is part of the Russia-led Customs Union and various other trade and military groups.
Like Mr Putin, Mr Nazarbayev the sight of protesters in Kiev defeating the riot police would have chilled him.
So, up to this point, Kazakhstan is firmly on the same side as Russia. Where they might differ is on Russia’s invasion of Crimea and its encouragement of an independence referendum. Russia has said it has had to act to protect Russian speakers in Ukraine.
And this is the problem. If Russia legitimises its action to defend Russian speakers in Ukraine, where does it stop?
One of Mr Nazarbayev’s key projects has been to make the country more Kazakh. He has succeed, to a large extent. Kazakh is far more widely spoken than it once was; many Russians who had lived in Kazakhstan have left while Kazakhs living abroad have returned.
But northern Kazakhstan is still majority ethnic Russian and Mr Nazarbayev doesn’t want Russia to give out any wrong ideas. Some prominent Russian figures are already calling for northern Kazakhstan to join with Russia.
In a phone call with Mr Putin on March 10, Mr Nazarbayev’s press service said he had expressed his support for defending minorities in Ukraine. He may have said this through gritted teeth.
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(News report from Issue No. 175, published on March 12 2014)
FEB. 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A new opposition party in Kyrgyzstan called the United National Opposition Movement (UNOM) launched itself in Bishkek with a relatively pro-West agenda. The UNOM said Kyrgyzstan should hold a national referendum before it joined the Russia-led Customs Union. Kazakhstan and Belarus are members of the Customs Union.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
MARCH 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia will join the Russia-led Customs Union by mid-April, local media quoted deputy foreign minister Shavarsh Kocharyan as saying.
His statement was a show of support from the Armenian government to Russia in its row with the West over Ukraine. Armenia has previously said it would not be ready to join the Customs Union — a loose economic bloc including Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan — until June.
The decision last year by Ukraine’s government to turn its back on the European Union in favour of closer ties with Russia, triggered demonstrations which culminated in his month’s revolution.
Armenia, though, has never wavered in its support for Russia. Its move towards the Customs Union and away from the European Union has broad public support.
Russian companies are one of the biggest investors in Armenia. Earlier this year Russian gas monopoly Gazprom completed the purchase of the Armenia gas network and oil company Rosneft has also pledged to invest $500m into a rubber plant outside Yerevan.
The Russian military also maintains one of its biggest overseas bases in Armenia which the public sees as a bulwark against potential Azerbaijani aggression. Also on March 1, one of the main opposition leaders in Armenia, former president Levon Ter-Petrosyan told his supporters at a rally in Yerevan that joining the Customs Union was the right move for Armenia.
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
FEB. 21 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan has banned the sale of Uzbekistan-made GM Daewoo cars, media reported, triggering a potential trade row between the two neighbours.
Officially, Kazakhstan said Customs Union rules stated that imported cars must have at least one front airbag, ABS braking, child safety seat attachment points, daytime running lights and an immobiliser.
Unofficially, the suspicion is that Kazakhstan may be using the Customs Union to protect its own car industry.
The Customs Union has been in existence since 2011. It is led by Russia and so far includes also Kazakhstan and Belarus, although Armenia and Kyrgyzstan plan to join later this year. Uzbekistan has no plans to join.
Its rules and regulations, though, are some-what murky but what we do know is that, by instinct, it is a protectionist organisation.
What is clear is that last year GM-Uzbekistan, which produces its cars at a factory in Andijan in eastern Uzbekistan sold around 23,000 of its cheaper car models in Kazakhstan and around three times that many to Russia.
GM took over the Daewoo factory in Uzbekistan in 2008.
Visitors to Shymkent, a city of 600,000 people in Kazakhstan on the border with Uzbekistan, will notice that many of the cars on the roads being driven there are Daewoo.
Both Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have been talking up their car industries. Uzbekistan’s main car markets are Russia and Kazakhstan and the GM Daewoo factory is its biggest producer.
Losing Kazakhstan, and Russia, as an export market will be a major blow and have, potentially, far reaching implications.
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(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)