JUNE 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Doctors and nurses will receive a 28% salary rise next year, media quoted health minister Salidat Kairbekova as saying. Medical workers have long complained that they are underpaid, especially since a 20% devaluation of the tenge this year. Nurses in Kazakhstan are currently paid $436/month; doctors $620/month.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)
JUNE 18 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – So, now it is official. The unrest in Ukraine is negatively impacting Kazakhstan’s economy, economy minister Yerbolat Dossayev said at a routine press conference.
Economists have been downgrading Kazakhstan’s growth predictions this year because of increased fighting in Ukraine and international sanctions on Russia after it annexed Crimea but this is the first official confirmation.
“The poor growth rate of industrial production, the slowdown of investment activities, high levels of non- performing loans, and the crisis in Ukraine are the main risks to Kazakhstan’s economy,” Mr Dossayev said.
Kazakhstan is now looking at GDP growth this year of around 4% rather than the 6% it first hoped to hit.
Rasul Zhumaly, a political analyst for the exclusive.kz website explained the impact of the Ukraine unrest on Kazakhstan.
“(There is a) high level of interdependence among these post-Soviet economies,” he said. “The Ukrainian situation is negatively affecting the Russian economy and this in turn is closing some avenues for the development of Kazakhstan.”
There is, though, a sneaking suspicion that the Kazakh officials may be starting to use Ukraine as an excuse, shielding genuine structural problems in the economy from attention.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)
JUNE 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz agriculture accounts for around a fifth of GDP and just under half the country’s employment according to the country’s National Statistics Committee, yet many farmers say the sector is on its knees.
As Kyrgyzstan prepares for entry into the Eurasian Economic Union comprising Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, discussions over farming’s future are only likely to intensify.
On June 12, Alibek Rakaev, Head of the Association of Pastoralists told journalists that meat production in the country was falling due to the prevalence of diseases that village vets have proven unable to diagnose or treat. Livestock farming was in a “critical condition”, he said.
Back in Soviet times Kyrgyzstan’s meat and dairy products were exported all over the Union, but neighbouring Kazakhstan now views Kyrgyzstan’s products with caution and has banned import of Kyrgyz milk and meat in the past. The Eurasian Economic Union has even tighter controls.
Poultry farmers might welcome membership, with high tariffs on non-Union imports potentially restricting the flow of Chinese chicken and eggs onto the domestic market, but for Kyrgyzstan’s crop-growers, Jomart Jumabekov, a member of the Public Advisory Board on the Ministry of Agriculture, said, closer integration with Russia and Kyrgyzstan means problems.
“I view the Customs Union negatively. Russian and Kazakh wheat and grains already dominate our market,” Mr Jumabekov told the Conway Bulletin. “With even fewer barriers to trade with these countries, we will stop growing even a small proportion of our own food. No-one will till the land.”
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)
JUNE 23 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia has tightened entry rules for Tajik migrants, media reported, threatening a major source of Tajikistan’s income. Tajik citizens will now only be allowed to enter Russia on their official passport and not ID cards. Remittances from Russia make up 50% of Tajikistan’s GDP.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)
JUNE 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Reports on the internet have surfaced which suggest that unrest may be brewing in Karakalpakstan, the remote western region of Uzbekistan. Karakalpakstan is officially an autonomous republic although in practice this mean little. Reports said protesters demonstrating at job cuts at a gas processing plant had been arrested.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)
JUNE 19 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Workers at an oil services company that supplies equipment to the Kashagan oil project in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea have gone on strike, media reported.
Since a strike by oil workers in west Kazakhstan ended in 2011 in clashes with police and 15 people being killed, the authorities have been ultra-sensitive to industrial action, so news that workers have walked out of Tuplar Energy Serves Company (TESCO) complaining of late salary payments will frustrate them.
TESCO have responded that their main client, the Australian company WorleyParsons hasn’t paid their invoices on time. WorleyParsons hasn’t commented.
The importance of this latest strike action in west Kazakhstan is not who is ultimately responsibly, no doubt lawyers will thrash this out, but the impact on the local community. If people aren’t working and aren’t being paid that means less cash in the local economy, increasing frustration and resentment of the increasingly rich political elite.
One disgruntled worker told the lada.kz news website: “I came here to work and establish a family, now I can’t find another job, the company hasn’t paid me for six months and the banks are pressuring me about my mortgage.”
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)
JUNE 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The price of a loaf of bread has increased in Pavlodar, north Kazakhstan, to 60 tenge from 47 tenge, media reported. The price rise is just the latest in Kazakhstan. Creeping inflation, triggered by supply line problems and utility price rises, threaten to cause social tension.
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(News report from Issue No. 190, published on June 25 2014)
JUNE 13 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – After a six month delay, Kyrgyzstan approved a business plan for Centerra Gold’s Kumtor mine in the east of the country. The approval narrowly beat a deadline set by Toronto-listed Centerra Gold which had threatened to close the mine for the year. Kumtor is Kyrgyzstan’s single biggest industrial operation.
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(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)
JUNE 16 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Inflation in Kyrgyzstan will almost certainly double this year to around 8%, Tolkun Abdygulov, head of the Central Bank, said. Increasing inflation could agitate people in Kyrgyzstan. Mr Abdygulov also said that the Central Bank had spent $198m trying to prop up the Kyrgyz national currency.
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(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)
JUNE 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The price of potatoes in Kazakhstan has roughly doubled because of a shortage, media reported.This is important because food price spikes can generate discontent. Earlier this month, bread price increased in south Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 189, published on June 18 2014)