JAN. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s economy grew by 6% in 2013 up from 2.2% in 2012, media quoted President Ilham Aliyev as saying. The strong growth figure will be a boost for Mr Aliyev. One of the government’s key targets is to increase inflation. Last year, Mr Aliyev said, inflation roughly doubled to 2.4%.
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(News report from Issue No. 167, published on Jan. 15 2014)
JAN. 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan’s GDP grew at 10.2% in 2013, one of the quickest growth rates in the world, according to the economy ministry. The biggest growth spurt came in the construction sector which grew by 17%. Most of this economic expansion, though, is fuelled by gas exports to China and beyond.
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(News report from Issue No. 167, published on Jan. 15 2014)
JAN. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Uzbek government increased the price of petrol by 20% because of continued shortages. Uzbeks are already labouring under a series of price rises, from food to general utilities. The jump in petrol prices could cause resentment to grow.
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(News report from Issue No. 167, published on Jan. 15 2014)
JAN. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government will relax rules for migrant workers from February 2014, media reported. Migrant workers will be allowed to stay in Kazakhstan for a year if they hold a bank account. The labour ministry said there were 174,000 migrant workers in Kazakhstan last year. It estimated that this would rise to 500,000 by 2015.
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(News report from Issue No. 167, published on Jan. 15 2014)
JAN. 14 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Uzbek government has quietly increased the price of fuel by 20%, media reported. The new prices came into effect from Jan. 10.
The main cause of the petrol shortages in Uzbekistan are problems at the country’s largest oil refinery in Ferghana.
It’s still unclear what impact this price rise will have on Uzbek society. Tension is already rising because of price increases for basic utilities and food. Last year in Samarkand a group of women held a rare anti-government protest. Still, in Uzbekistan’s tightly controlled society there has so far been few signs of dissent.
And Uzbeks have already been adapting to steadily rising fuel prices.
The main problem for drivers is a deficit of oil in Uzbekistan. This means that state-owned UzGazOil has had to import and refine oil at more or less commercial rates, pushing up the price of petrol.
Reports from Uzbekistan have said that many drivers have already modified their vehicles to run on gas, which is cheaper, rather than petrol. This can be a dangerous practice as these gas fired wagons are prone to exploding.
The Uzbek authorities announced the petrol price rise quietly and official media didn’t cover the event.
But there was more bad news for drivers. From April, the government is introducing a 3% so-called road maintenance tax on new cars.
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(News report from Issue No. 167, published on Jan. 15 2014)
DEC. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Uzbek government said foreign currencies could be used legally inside the Navoi industrial free zone, media reported. The decision is aimed at increasing interest in one of Uzbekistan’s major business drives. Uzbekistan wants the Navoi industrial free zone to become a transport and industrial hub for Asia.
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(News report from Issue No. 166, published on Jan. 8 2014)
DEC. 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — More usually described as unilateral, Uzbekistan has taken a step towards being more collegiate towards its neighbours.
Uzbek President Islam Karimov signed a law on joining a free trade agreement among nine members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
Uzbekistan originally signed a protocol on the free trade deal at a session of heads of CIS governments in Minsk, Belarus, on May 31 2013 and had been waiting for Mr Karimov’s signature to ratify it.
By joining the agreement Uzbekistan will drop import and export fees on goods to and from other member states. Of the eight other countries that signed the free trade deal in 2013 Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine have already put it into operation. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are still waiting to ratify it.
President Karimov has been keen to distance himself from the CIS in general and Moscow in particular but signing the agreement does bring Tashkent closer to the Kremlin.
Uzbekistan is expected to benefit from the agreement. What this move doesn’t mean, and this is important, is that relations with the West have weakened in any way. The free trade deal is important mainly for Uzbekistan’s exports and not for its geo-political trajectory.
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(News report from Issue No. 166, published on Jan. 8 2014)
DEC. 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The state-owned Development Bank of Kazakhstan plans to inject $800m into the economy through loans to small and medium sized industrial projects, said Kuandyk Bishimbayev, CEO of NUH Bayterek, the state holding company that owns the bank. Mr Bishimbayev said lending to small businesses has drop by 25% in the past year.
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(News report from Issue No. 166, published on Jan. 8 2014)
JAN. 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s Central Bank cut its key interest rate to 10% from 12% to try and combat falling inflation, media reported. Uzbekistan’s interest rate had been 12% since January 2011. Analysts expect official inflation in Uzbekistan to fall in 2014 to around 6% from 7% in 2013.
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(News report from Issue No. 166, published on Jan. 8 2014)
DEC. 31 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Overall inflation in Kazakhstan in 2013 slowed to 4.8% compared to 6% in 2012, the national statistics agency said. This is below the Central Bank’s forecast of between 6-8%. In 2012, the Kazakh Central Bank cut its key interest rate to a historic low of 5.5% to try and bolster falling prices.
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(News report from Issue No. 166, published on Jan. 8 2014)