FEB. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an interview with Reuters news agency, Georgia’s economy minister Georgy Kvirikasvili said he may halve the country’s projected economic growth to 2.5% this year. Mr Kvirikasvili said the side-effects of Ukraine’s civil war and the sanctions on Russia had hurt Georgia’s economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015)
FEB. 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an effort to stop its currency from sliding further, the Georgian Central Bank said it had sold another $40m of its reserves. This is the third time this month it has sold US dollar reserves to prop up its lari currency.
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(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015)
FEB. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s Central Bank has said that economic growth this year could virtually stagnate at a mere 0.4%, media reported. This figure is at the lower end of its updated estimate which blamed a poor Russian economy for the general slowdown in Armenia’s own economic prospects.
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(News report from Issue No. 220, published on Feb. 25 2015)
FEB. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kairat Kelimbetov, head of the Kazakh Central Bank, hinted for the first time that he was prepared to allow a gradual devaluation of the tenge. He told Russian media: “We will not allow a one-off shock devaluation and instead will work within the framework of a smooth and flexible exchange rate mechanism.”
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(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)
FEB. 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s president Emomali Rakhmon sacked the managing-director at TALCO, the company that runs its aluminium smelter, media reported. No official reason was given for sacking Sadriddin Sharipov from TALCO which generates around 70% of Tajikistan’s foreign earnings.
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(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)
>>Dollar being dropped to counter oil price slip>>
FEB. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan plans to scrap its currency peg to the dollar to ease the impact of falling oil prices, Azerbaijani Central Bank chief, Elman Rustamov, said in an interview with the Financial Times.
The comments appeared to trigger a reaction on the street. Bulletin correspondents reported long queues forming outside exchange booths in Baku the day after the interview was published. People were anticipating another currency devaluation and were trying to exchange their Azerbaijani manat into US dollars.
Like other countries in the region, Azerbaijan has been trying to deal with the fallout from Russia’s tumbling rouble and the decline in oil prices.
One of the major side-effects of the economic turmoil has been an increase in inflation, as Mr Rustamov pointed out in the interview.
“It is critical to make some kind of corrections to fiscal and monetary policy,” he said. “We consider that we should transit to a more flexible exchange rate regime and gradually we will transit to an inflation-targeting regime.”
He didn’t say when the US dollar peg would be dropped but he did say that the new basket would hold more Euros, reflecting more accurately Azerbaijan’s trade make-up. Economists said they expected a gradual decline in the value of the manat of around 1% every month.
And people in Baku are becoming increasingly concerned about economic instability.
Mahammad Qasimli, 57, a school teacher said he was concerned hyperinflation from the mid-1990s may return.
“Every time when there is economic turmoil, the poor suffer the most,” he said.”
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(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)
>>Early vote is a tried and tested strategy>>
FEB. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev looks set to bring forward a presidential election by a year, a move designed to impose stability during a turbulent economic period.
The Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan asked parliament to bring forward a presidential election from 2016 to this spring.
“It is crucial to strengthen the economy and ensure the continuity of the current policy by holding an early election,” the assembly, a constitutional body headed by Mr Nazarbayev, said in a statement.
Since then the country’s biggest political party Nur Otan has voiced its support for an early election.
The dire economic situation has been a constant headache for the Kazakh leadership in the past few months, especially after the plunge in oil prices and the collapse of the Russian rouble.
The Kazakh elite view extending Mr Nazarbayev’s term in office by another five years as a way of imposing stability. Kazakhstan, also, has form with bringing elections forward. It brought an election in 2011 forward. Mr Nazarbayev won with 96% of the votes.
Experts were waiting for an announcement of this sort.
Kazakhstan’s political watchers had often ended conversations with Bulletin correspondents with: “We are waiting for an early election, to guarantee medium-term stability.”
It appears that their predictions have been borne out. It still remains to be seen, though, whether these elections will calm an increasingly turbulent political and economic environment.
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(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)
FEB. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — As expected, Georgia’s Central Bank increased its key interest rate by 50 basis points to 4.5% to try and dampen inflation. The Georgian lari has lost 8.5% of its value against the US dollar this year, increasing inflationary pressures.
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(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)
FEB. 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s foreign trade dropped by 9% in January compared to a year earlier, the national statistics office said. It blamed the Ukrainian civil war and the fall in the rouble for reducing demand for Georgia’s key exports — wine, water and citrus fruits.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)
>>Peace accords had been in front of parliament>>
FEB. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan withdrew a series of peace accords relating to the country’s long-running dispute with Turkey.
The move is a major setback for the region as the Armenia-Turkey spat is a hindrance to improved ties and trade with Europe. The two countries’ argue about the alleged mass killings by Turkish Ottoman soldiers of Armenians who were fleeing their land around Lake Van in the east of Turkey.
Mr Sargsyan blamed Turkey for the cancellation.
“We were ready for a fully-fledged settlement in our relations with Turkey by ratifying these protocols, but we were also ready for failure,” media quoted him as saying.
The two countries signed declarations in 2009 to establish diplomatic relations and open a land border.
The problem is that neither the Turkish nor the Armenian parliaments have approved the deals. Nationalists on both sides have instead slowed progress and frustrated efforts.
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(News report from Issue No. 219, published on Feb. 18 2015)