AUG. 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan should produce 1.1m tonnes of processed cotton in 2013, the same level as last year, an industry website reported quoting government officials. Cotton is a major foreign currency earner for Uzbekistan, the world’s sixth largest producer and second largest exporter.
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(News report from Issue No. 149, published on Aug. 26 2013)
AUG. 15 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Highlighting its energy wealth, Turkmenistan unveiled plans to build a $2b port on its Caspian Sea coast. Turkmen leader Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan launched the project. Turkish construction company Gap Insaat will build the port.
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(News report from Issue No. 148, published on Aug. 19 2013)
AUG. 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan is on the verge of signing a deal to send 200,000 tonnes of cotton annually to Bangladesh, media reported. Bangladesh already imports cotton from Uzbekistan for its garment-making industry but this deal should smooth the process. Human rights groups accuse Uzbekistan of using child labour to pick cotton.
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(News report from Issue No. 147, published on Aug. 12 2013)
AUG. 7 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — BP stemmed an output drop at Azerbaijan’s Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) oil fields. In the first three months of 2013, ACG’s output was 662,000 barrels per day (bpd), rising to an average of 672,000bpd for the first half of the year, Reuters reported. ACG accounts for most of Azerbaijan’s oil production and is vital to its economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 147, published on Aug. 12 2013)
AUG. 9 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s Central Bank appointed Deutsche Bank, HSBC and JP Morgan to lead the issue of its inaugural $500m Eurobond, media reported. In May, Armenia said it wanted to issue the debt to pay off a $500m loan from Russia it had borrowed during the 2009 global financial crisis.
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(News report from Issue No. 147, published on Aug. 12 2013)
AUG. 9 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an interview with the FT, Umirzak Shukeyev, chairman of Kazakhstan’s $80b sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna, said he wanted to streamline the organisation and improve corporate governance standards. Over the past few years, Kazakh companies have attracted increased criticism on governance issues.
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(News report from Issue No. 147, published on Aug. 12 2013)
AUG. 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — In the year to end-July food prices in Armenia increased by around 10%, media quoted official statistics as saying. Food price increases are an important statistic to monitor as fast rises can trigger discontent. Spending on food makes up a large proportion of ordinary people’s income.
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(News report from Issue No. 146, published on Aug. 5 2013)
AUG. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A pre-election spending spree on various social projects will push Azerbaijan into a budget deficit for the first time in a decade, Bloomberg quoted the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s as saying. Azerbaijan’s presidential election is scheduled for October. Ilham Aliyev is running for a third consecutive term.
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(News report from Issue No. 146, published on Aug. 5 2013)
JULY 26 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Tajik Central Bank has stopped publishing monthly remittance data because it can be manipulated for political gain, media quoted its head, Abdujabbor Shirinov, as saying. Remittances account for roughly 50% of the Tajik economy, the highest proportion in the world.
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(News report from Issue No. 145, published on July 29 2013)
JULY 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s Central Bank scotched rumours of an impending devaluation of the tenge. The tenge is tightly bound to the Russian rouble which is relatively stable. In Feb. 2009, the Kazakh central bank devalued the tenge by 21% shortly after their Russian counterparts devalued the rouble.
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(News report from Issue No. 145, published on July 29 2013)