JAN. 10 2012 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh central bank chief, Grigory Marchenko, estimated GDP growth for Kazakhstan in 2012 at 6%. This is slower economic growth than in 2011 but in a worsening global economic climate it also underlines the potential of Kazakhstan’s economy.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 72, published on Jan. 13 2012)
DEC. 23 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, the Turkmen president, travelled to Moscow to meet Russia’s President, Dmitri Medvedev, and PM, Vladimir Putin. The trip is important because economic ties between the countries have worsened over rows about gas prices and mobile phone licenses in the past three years.
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(News report from Issue No. 71, published on Jan. 5 2012)
DEC. 15 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to reject a deal to reduce tariffs on Uzbek textiles until the UN is given access to investigate reports of child labour. The decision comes at a time when, despite criticism over its human rights, Uzbekistan is being re-integrated into the international community.
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(News report from Issue No. 70, published on Dec. 22 2011)
DEC. 18 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Riots that have killed at least 16 people in western Kazakhstan are a major challenge to the Kazakh elite.
It was, to put it simply, the biggest display of public discontent with the country’s leaders since independence in 1991.
The authorities have since imposed a state of emergency in the town of Zhanaozen, the centre of the fighting, and flooded the region with military. Protests have now taken root in Aktau, a major nearby oil centre, although there are so far no reports of violence.
Their strategy is simple. They aim to stop protests spreading to cities outside the western region of Mangistau. If they can’t, then the outlook for 2012 is decidedly bumpy.
The authorities’ reaction to the riots was insightful. It felt Soviet. They simply crushed the former oil workers who had occupied the main square in Zhanaozen since mid-May.
The statements that followed were dripping in Soviet language. According to President Nursultan Nazarbayev, the riots were started by selfish bandits and hooligans and the police had fired on them only when they feared for their lives. Reading it felt like 1986.
The bottom line is that in two consecutive civil disorder scenarios, police fired live rounds at protesters and killed several people.
Kazakhstan has prided itself on being an island of stability in volatile post-Soviet Central Asia. That image is looking distinctly battered.
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(News report from Issue No. 70, published on Dec. 22 2011)
DEC. 7 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Underlining his unilateral principles, Uzbek president Islam Karimov used a TV speech to warn against integration in the former Soviet Union. Commentators interpreted the speech as a snub to Russian PM Vladimir Putin’s proposal of a Eurasian Union. Kazakhstan backs the idea of a Eurasian Union.
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(News report from Issue No. 69, published on Dec. 14 2011)
DEC. 11 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia will raise taxes to 25% from 20% for people earning over $5,250 per month in a 2012 budget which aims to reduce the national deficit and increase spending, local media reported. Detractors say tax increases will hit small and medium-sized businesses. Armenia holds elections in 2012.
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(News report from Issue No. 69, published on Dec. 14 2011)
DEC. 2 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – An underground metro opened in Almaty, 23 years after construction work started. Almaty hit a population of 1m people in the mid-1980s triggering the Soviet authorities to start building a metro system. This stopped in 1991 when the USSR collapsed but Kazakhstan has since spent $1.1b completing the metro.
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(News report from Issue No. 68, published on Dec. 8 2011)
DEC. 6 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s relatively small and illiquid stock exchange (KASE) is looking for a tie-up with either the London Stock Exchange (LSE) or the two Russian stock exchanges, the head of KASE, Kadyrzhan Damitov, told the FT. Kazakhstan plans to sell stock in state-owned businesses in 2012.
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(News report from Issue No. 68, published on Dec. 8 2011)
NOV. 29 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Petrol prices in Tajikistan, a key price to watch for inflation and social tension, have risen sharply in the last few days, the state anti-monopoly agency told local media. The official said the suspension of a railway line in Uzbekistan because of a suspected bomb attack had hit supplies.
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(News report from Issue No. 67, published on Dec. 1 2011)
NOV. 30 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan will follow Russia in to the WTO and join at the end of 2012, Madina Abylkassymova, deputy minister for trade and economic development, said at a conference in Almaty. In November, Russia agreed a deal to enter the WTO next year.
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(News report from Issue No. 67, published on Dec. 1 2011)