OCT. 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will complete the merger of its private pension schemes into a single national programme by the middle of next year, media quoted the Central Bank chief, Kairat Kelimbetov, as saying. The original plan had been to merge 11 pension funds in Kazakhstan into a single $21b programme by the end of 2013.
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(News report from Issue No. 158, published on Oct. 30 2013)
OCT. 24 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan increased its state-imposed cap on fuel prices by 7 tenge to 117 tenge ($0.76) per litre of 92-octane petrol. Prices for the lower grade 80-octane petrol and diesel were left unchanged.
The closure of the refinery in Shymkent for scheduled repairs has triggered localised fuel shortages in the weeks prior to the price hike, scheduled for November.
In Southern Kazakhstan fuel was sold only through coupons and in limited quantities. Lines of cars queued at petrol stations that quickly ran out of 92-octane fuel and supplied only the 80-octane version.
Fuel price rises hurt consumers and tension is brewing in Kazakhstan.
According to the Kazakhstan Fuel Association (KFA), a fuel industry lobby group, routine repairs at the Shymkent refinery caused the shortage. It is only one of three refineries in Kazakhstan.
The government has instead blamed a general global increase in oil for the rise on the petrol price cap.
Ordinary drivers are even more frustrated. They blame owners of petrol stations for holding back supplies until the fuel price cap had been raised.
They’ve also had to stomach a higher price increase than originally flagged up.
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(News report from Issue No. 158, published on Oct. 30 2013)
OCT. 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The size of Azerbaijan’s non-oil sector has grown by 10.4% since last year, the country’s statistics department said quoting figures comparing the first nine months of this year with the same period in 2012. Expanding the non-oil sector is considered key to sustaining Azerbaijan’s economic expansion.
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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)
OCT. 17 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s government has complained to Russia about the apparent mistreatment of one of its nationals by police in Moscow, media reported.
The complaint is important because it sets Azerbaijan at loggerheads, once again, with Russia over the sensitive topic of migrant workers.
Police in Moscow arrested Orhan Zeylanov, a 25-year-old migrant worker from Azerbaijan, on Oct. 15 for the apparent murder of a Russian man a few days earlier.
The murder was blamed for triggering a riot in a Moscow suburb, the worst anti-migrant violence for years.
TV footage from the arrest of Mr Zeylanov showed police kicking him. The TV commentator also referred to him as “the killer” before any formal court proceeding had started.
The row renews the debate over how migrant workers are treated in Russia.
It also, importantly, focuses attention on relations between Azerbaijan and Russia.
These have grown steadily more strained over the past few years. Azerbaijan has challenged Russia’s gas dominance and created an alternative energy supply route for EU states.
Azerbaijan has also become cosy with the United States. In short, its energy wealth has allowed it to act increasingly independently from Russia.
Compared to other former Soviet countries, remittances from workers in Russia make up only a small proportion of Azerbaijan’s economy, 3% according to the World Bank, but it is still important.
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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)
OCT. 17 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Fitch, the rating agency, confirmed a BBB- rating for Azerbaijan after its latest economic assessment. It predicted GDP growth of 5% this year, driven by government spending, up from 2.2% in 2012. Fitch said, though, that this growth would slow slightly in 2014 and 2015.
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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)
OCT. 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — At the annual conference of the ruling Nur Otan political party, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said he supported the introduction of a wealth tax and wanted more people to learn English. The Nur Otan conference and Mr Nazarbayev’s pronouncements are a decent weather mast for future policy in Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)
OCT. 14 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russia lifted a ban on fruit imports from Georgia, a further sign of improving relations. In 2006, Russia banned fruit from Georgia, officially because of poor hygiene. Most analysts, though, said the ban was in retaliation for the expulsion from Tbilisi of four soldiers for spying.
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(News report from Issue No. 156, published on Oct. 16 2013)
OCT. 13 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Hundreds of ethnic Russians in a suburb of Moscow rioted against migrant workers from the South Caucasus and Central Asia. The trigger for the violence was the alleged murder of a Russian man by an Azerbaijani. Remittances from migrant workers are vital to the economies of Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
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(News report from Issue No. 156, published on Oct. 16 2013)
OCT. 8 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — One of the features of Azerbaijan’s oil boom has been its parallel armaments boom. As Azerbaijan’s economy has grown, so has its expenditure on weapons.
And 2014, according to media reports, is not going to be an exception. The Azerbaijani state budget forecasts spending 1.6b manat ($2b) on weapons next year, a 7% increase on 2013.
Azerbaijan is still at war, officially anyway, with Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. It is clearly winning the arms race with its neighbour and biggest enemy.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) has estimated that in real terms, taking out inflation and currency fluctuations, Azerbaijan’s military spending has increased ten-fold since 2000. Armenia has doubled defence spending in the same period.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
OCT. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The number of people with consumer loans in Azerbaijan has doubled in the past year to 1.75m, roughly 18% of the population, Eurasianet reported. It said that banks have been increasingly eager to hand out loans, relaxing barriers and paperwork. Some analysts have warned that the consumer boom is unaffordable.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)