JULY 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s economy ministry said that electricity prices may have to rise by 12% this year, media reported. Electricity prices have become an issue in the region because a proposed rise in Armenia has sparked street demonstrations.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 238, published on July 2 2015)
JUNE 21-25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – YEREVAN — In an often tense standoff with police, thousands of people demonstrated in Yerevan this week against electricity price rises.
A Bulletin correspondent estimated that the protest had swelled to around 8,000 people by Thursday evening, the biggest anti-government demonstration in Armenia for a generation and one that could pose a serious threat to the authorities.
On Tuesday, the second day of the protest, police fired water cannons and detained more than 200 people as they tried to clear Freedom Square in the centre of the city. The assault, though, just appeared to strengthen protesters’ resolve.
“Our demand remains the same and we will not leave Baghramyan Avenue until the illegal decision on electricity price hike will not be annulled,” said Aram Manukyan, an activist.
Hundreds of protesters have camped out overnight since and called for the 17% electricity price rise to be repealed.
This is the third price rise in two years. RAO UES, the Russian company that owns Armenia’s electricity network, said it needed to increase prices because of the fall in the value of the Armenian dram which makes imports expensive.
The price raises are particularly painful because Armenia, like other countries in the region, is having to deal with a drop in its economic prospects.
Protesters had started to gather in central Yerevan on Monday, June 22, in anticipation of parliament approving the electricity price rise two days later.
The next day, police turned their water cannons against the demonstrators and waded into the crowd, detaining people trying to stage a sit-in.
Since then, the crowds of protesters have swelled but been peaceful.
PM Hovik Abrahamyan said that the protests were misguided.
“Blocking one of the major prospects in the city will not lead to any success. I call on the activists to get back to constructive dialogue,” he said.
In 2008, eight people died in Yerevan when soldiers fired on anti-government demonstrators.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek officials signed a protocol with their Chinese counterparts to extend their economic cooperation, media reported. The deal was signed by Chinese and Uzbek government officials in the Chinese city of Rizhao where the two governments had been holding a third intergovernmental meeting.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The number of cars imported into Azerbaijan dropped by around 50% in the first five months of the year, media reported quoting official statistics.
Between January and May, 13,912 passenger cars were imported into the country, down from 27,444 during the same period last year.
The slump in car imports into Azerbaijan is probably a result of a number of factors.
These include a general economic downturn in the region, linked to a recession in Russia and a drop in oil and gas prices. Russia’s economy drives the former Soviet region and oil and gas is the mainstay of Azerbaijan’s economy.
Also, earlier this year Azerbaijan devalued its manat currency by a third, making imports more expensive.
And in 2014, the Azerbaijani government passed a law which banned car imports not using the higher grade Euro-4 fuel type.
This meant that many older cars from Europe could no longer be imported into Azerbaijan.
The knock on effect of this slump in demand is hitting car prices in Azerbaijan too, economist Vugar Bayramov told the azernews.az website.
He said that as inflation has picked up in Azerbaijan, it has pushed up the price of a new cars but the value for older cars has fallen. “Our monitoring shows that the prices of old cars decreased by 7%,” he said.
Mr Bayramov also said that banks in Azerbaijan had also tightened their finance requirements for cars, requiring a downpayment for financing of 50%, up from 20% earlier.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The number of migrant workers travelling from Tajikistan to Russia fell by 15% during the first half of the year, according to data from the ministry of labour.
The statistics, which run from January to mid-June 2015, showed that about 315,000 workers travelled from Tajikistan to Russia to find work, 52,000 less than in 2014.
Most have been put off by the drop in Russian economic output, which has knocked job opportunities.
Tajik labour migration to Kazakhstan, though, has increased by 33%, although the absolute numbers are small in comparison with Russia. The data showed that 4,800 workers from Tajikistan had travelled to Kazakhstan to find work, up from 1,200 in 2014.
Remittances from migrant workers are key to Tajikistan’s economy. A World Bank report forecast a 40% drop in remittances to Tajikistan this year because of the poor state of the Russian economy and the collapse of the Tajik somoni.
The new ministry of labour data adds credence to this worsening economic picture.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – YEREVAN — Armenia’s government wants to change the way it measures its national debt, a con trick, its opponents have said, which is aimed at massaging the numbers by cutting out the Central Bank’s borrowings.
The Armenian parliament passed a first reading of a bill which will ditch the current state debt and instead measure the national debt.
Atom Janjughazyan, deputy finance minister, said the change was needed to meet international standards.
“The sole purpose of the bill is to improve the financial statistics of the State in accordance with international practice,” he said in parliament.
But opposition MPs said the change was merely a cover for allowing the government to borrow so that it can ease itself out of the current financial downturn, triggered by a fall in the Russian economy, the main economic driver for the former Soviet Union.
And this viewpoint appears to be backed by international economists. Teresa Daban Sanchez, the IMF representative in Armenia, told an Armenian newspaper the country’s external debt is now uncomfortable.
“The government needs to take measures so that the debt against the GDP index begins to fall,” she said.
Armenia’s government has previously said it will borrow to prop itself up through the current economic downturn. Under government rules its debt must be below 60% of GDP.
Mr Janjughazyan, the deputy finance minister, said under the new system, Armenia’s debt measured $4.4b against a GDP of $10.9m, comfortably below the 60% mark.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – After 19 years of negotiations, Kazakhstan will join the World Trade Organisation (WTO) later this year after officially agreeing terms with the economic group.
President Nursultan Nazarbayev was quick to appear on TV to laud the success of the WTO entry .
“The WTO membership opens up new horizons for our econ- omy,” Mr Nazarbayev said on national TV.
Commodities make up most of Kazakhstan’s foreign trade, already carried at very low tariffs.
Tariffs are at the centre of the debate on Kazakhstan’s WTO membership.
It is also part of the Russia-led Customs Union, which morphed into the Eurasian Economic Union this year. This is, essentially, an old-school trade bloc which promotes free trade between members but puts up barriers to non-members. The other members of the Eurasian
Economic Union are Russia, Belarus and Armenia. Kyrgyzstan is on the brink of joining.
Even so, the WTO and Kaza- khstan appear to have found a way around this potential stumbling block, although the details are scant.
Kazakh industrials have also been reticent about joining the WTO.
“Our community is concerned that the accession into the WTO would seriously reduce the protection levels and cause the flooding of cheap goods into our markets, which would kill our production,” Rakhim Oshak- bayev, deputy chairman of the National Chamber of Entrepre- neurs, told Kazakh media.
The terms of the accession remain classified and analysts have questioned this secrecy. When it first applied to join the organisation in 1996, Kazakhstan was a poor country which had just emerged from the ashes of the Soviet Union. Now, the scenario is different.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan will issue a £2b Eurobond, economy minister Yerbolat Dossayev told local media.
Mr Dossayev didn’t give specific dates for the issue but Reuters reported that Citigroup and JP Morgan are joint book- runners and Kazkommerts Securities and Halyk Finance are joint lead managers for the issue.
This is the second major dollar-denominated Eurobond that Kazakhstan has issued in the last year. In 2014, Kazakhstan issued a $2.5b Eurobond, its first since 2000.
Kazakhstan has been dealing with the fall out of a slide in global oil prices and a dip in the fortunes of Russia’s economy. Although the Central Bank has not stated just why it has borrowed so heavily in the past year, it is likely linked to this economic downturn.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s Central Bank kept its key interest rate unchanged at 10.5% as inflation steadied. The Central Bank increased its interest rate to 10.5% in February as it tried to defend the value of its currency.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan is one of the least energy efficient countries in the world for generating economic growth, Tomasz Telma, regional director for Europe, Middle East and North Africa at the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, told Bnews.kz.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)