JULY 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The chairman of Kazakh bank BTA, Erik Balapanov, resigned. The Kazakh government owns a majority stake in BTA bank, which it rescued from collapse during the 2008/9 global financial crisis. Mr Balapanov had been chairman of BTA Bank, which has debts of around $12b, since August 2012.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 143, published on July 15 2013)
JULY 13 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — There are 1,865 investment projects worth $41b in Turkmenistan, Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said on state TV. The figure could not be independently verified but it does underline Turkmenistan’s investment potential. A major gas exporter, the IMF has estimated Turkmenistan’s 2013 GDP growth at 8%.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 143, published on July 15 2013)
JULY 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Consumer prices in Kazakhstan rose 0.3% in June, according to the Statistics Committee. This means that for the 12-months to the end of June inflation measured 5.9%, continuing a general price rise slow-down. Inflation for the 12 months to the end of February measured 7%.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 142, published on July 8 2013)
JUNE 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Roughly 500 people protested near the Kumtor gold mine in east Kyrgyzstan, media reported, the latest in a series of protests against the Canadian owners of the mine. The protesters want the mine nationalised. Toronto-listed Centerra Gold owns Kumtor, the biggest industrial project in Kyrgyzstan. The Kyrgyz government owns a third of Centerra Gold.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 141, published on July 1 2013)
JUNE 19 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s Central Bank cut its key interest rate to 4% from 4.25% to try to stem falling consumer prices. This is the fourth interest rate cut by Georgia’s central bank this year. Falling consumer prices in Georgia illustrate the economic problems facing the wider region.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 140, published on June 24 2013)
JUNE 18 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government’s plan to unite pension savings in one fund is looking vulnerable.
Unveiled in January, the plan had been greeted with a decidedly mixed reaction. The idea was to draw efficiencies from a single scheme and to create a fund worth roughly $20b to dip into during an economic recession.
Detractors of the plan, that would see 10 private pension schemes and one state-run pension scheme unified under the Central Bank, said it would be uncompetitive.
Kazakhstan had been the first post-Soviet country to encourage private pension schemes and many bankers considered ditching them tantamount to being a turn-coat.
Now Halyk Bank, which has the largest private pension scheme in Kazakhstan, has said it would rather sell off its pension scheme for cash by the end of 2013 than swap it for shares in nationalised bank BTA.
In March, Kazakhstan deputy PM, Kairat Kelimbetov said that the three biggest pension schemes would be offered shares in state-run bank BTA in exchange. BTA went bankrupt in 2009 during the global financial crisis.
BTA bank is still distressed and had to re-structure its $11b debt for the second time last year.
Halyk Bank’s opinion counts as it is the biggest bank in Kazakhstan by volume of cash lent.
The move to switch Kazakhstan’s pension scheme was always going meet resistance. This is likely to be an unsettling period for the Kazakh banking sector.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 140, published on June 24 2013)
JUNE 21 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The UN has decreed the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan a World Heritage Site, media reported, giving the Tajik tourist industry a boost but also potentially making development in the area more difficult. The Tajik National Park, which covers 18% of the country and most of the Pamir Mountains, is Tajikistan’s first World Heritage Site.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 140, published on June 24 2013)
JUNE 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s ministry of agriculture has declared a state of emergency in two small areas near the border with China to cull cattle infected with foot-and-mouth disease, media reported. Roughly 2,275 infected cows have been killed already this year. Outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease occur annually in Kazakhstan.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 139, published on June 17 2013)
JUNE 13 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Foreign investment in Georgia, an important resource for the country, increased in Q1 2013 to $226m from $181m in Q4 2012, data from the national statistics agency showed. Reuters has previously reported that political fighting between President Mikheil Saakashvili and PM Bidzina Ivanishvili was deterring investors.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 139, published on June 17 2013)
JUNE 14 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Bloomberg News reported that Austrian prosecutors have accused nine bankers in Austria of bribing foreign bankers, including Adib Mayaleh, head of the Azerbaijani Central Bank. Mr Mayaleh denied he had taken a bribe. He has never been charged with corruption.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 139, published on June 17 2013)