Tag Archives: economy

Inflation raises in Tajikistan

SEPT. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s Central Bank said that annualised inflation amounted to 6.4% in August, an increase from last year’s level of 5.1%. Inflation is volatile in Tajikistan, as it is closely tied to the Central Bank’s currency interventions. Despite repeated Central Bank’s interventions, the Tajik somoni has lost 19% against the US dollar in the past 12 months.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)

Armenia’s PM resigns

SEPT. 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Hovik Abrahamyan resigned from his post as Armenian PM, saying that new leadership was needed to restore confidence in the government.

Local media outlets in Armenia have touted Karen Karapetyan, former mayor of Yerevan and Gazprom Armenia executive, as the potential new PM.

During his resignation speech, Mr Abrahamyan, PM since April 2014, said that Armenia needed new leadership to restore confidence.

“In order to improve the current economic and social situation, both the government and the people need to make joint efforts, and this requires new approaches and new principles,” he said.

Mr Abrahamyan may have been trying to deflect criticism from Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan. President since 2008, Mr Sargsyan’s popularity has fallen recently.

In July a group of gunmen calling for a new government captured a police station, triggering a two week standoff with security forces. Three policemen died during the capture of the police station and the subsequent standoff. Hundreds of protesters, supporting the gunmen clashed with police, during the standoff, highlighting the frustration with the government.

Armenia’s economy has flatlined and promised improvements in relations with neighbours have not materialised. In the summer of 2015, protesters clashed with police when the government tried to increase prices for electricity. In April, too, fighting broke out between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)

FDI grow in Georgia

SEPT. 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Georgia in the first half of 2016 grew by 10% compared to the same period last year. In Q2, FDI declined by 3.8% to $445m. Azerbaijan, Britain and the Czech Republic were the three largest investors in Georgia in Q2. FDI in the transport and communications sector made up more than a third of the total inflow.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)

Georgia’s Central Bank cuts interest rates

SEPT. 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s Central Bank cut interest rates by 25 basis points to 6.5%, the fourth rate cut in five months. The Central Bank has said it wants to lower interest rates further to prop up economic activity. In April, before the first cut, Georgia’s key interest rate stood at 8%. Georgian interest rates have yoyoed from 4% for most of 2014, climbing sharply to 8% before being lowered.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)

Azerbaijan raises interest rates to 8-year high

SEPT. 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s Central Bank raised its key interest rate to 15% from 9.5%, its highest level since 2008, to try to boost confidence in the ailing currency.

The manat has been falling in value for weeks, hitting an all-time low of 1.67/$1 on Friday, setting off fears of another currency crisis. Last year, the Central Bank devalued its currency twice, undermining confidence and wiping out people’s manat-based savings. A series of protests across the country against the worsening economic conditions, almost unprecedented in Azerbaijan, unnerved the Azerbaijani leadership.

The currency had been gaining in value this year until the end of May when it began to slip again. The manat has now lost 11% of its value since May 30.

The day before, the Azerbaijani Central Bank had sold $100m to try to prop up its currency.

Last week, Bloomberg News reported that local banks and exchange bureaus had suspended sales of foreign currencies due to the high demand.

Ratings agency Moody’s said the government should change regulations on capital controls brought in earlier this year.

“The restrictions on foreign-currency sales have led to the emergence of a parallel exchange market, which in our view speaks to the challenges the central bank faces to stem dollar demand and elevates risks of an accelerated depreciation in the official exchange rate,” Moody’s analysts said in a report.

Low oil prices have hit Azerbaijan’s economy hard over the past two years. Azerbaijan ‘s economy is particularly dependent on oil revenues as it generates around 3/4 of its income.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)

Azerbaijan halts currency trades

SEPT. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Banks in Azerbaijan’s capital have stopped selling foreign currency as demand soared after the Azerbaijani manat started to depreciate, triggering memories of the currency’s double devaluation last year.

The news will be disappointing to Central Banks across the Central Asia and South Caucasus region who had hoped to have moved away from the currency crises of 2014 and 2015.

According to sources in Baku, the manat traded at 1.68/$1, 5% lower than last month. They said that many Azerbaijanis now fear that another crisis is around the corner and have tried to hoard foreign currency. Bloomberg reported that 15 banks in Baku and the city’s international airport had stopped selling US dollars, a sign that demand had surpassed availability.

Azerbaijan’s economy is particularly vulnerable to the vagaries of oil prices, which have collapsed since 2014, and it is set to shrink this year for the first time since the mid-1990s.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 294, published on Sept. 2 2016)

Kazakhstan expects GDP to grow

SEPT. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s GDP will grow marginally by 0.5% in 2016 and move back to a steadier growth pattern in 2017, Kuandyk Bishimbayev, minister of economy said. Mr Bishimbayev said that Kazakhstan’s GDP will grow by 1.9% in 2017. He also said that, with the expected start-up of the Kashagan oil project, oil production will jump 13.5% to 84m tonnes/year in 2017, back to 2013 levels. This should bode well for the economy.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 294, published on Sept. 2 2016)

Fire in Moscow factory kills 17 Kyrgyz migrant workers

AUG. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A fire in a printing warehouse in northeast Moscow has killed 17 migrant workers from Kyrgyzstan, the Russian authorities said.

The fires once again raise concerns over safety standards for migrant workers from Central Asia in Russia. In January, 12 migrant workers died in a clothing factory in Moscow.

Emergency services said that the fire at the printing warehouse was started by a faulty light on the first floor. Smoke spread quickly through a lift shaft to the fourth floor where the workers were sleeping. Most of the workers died in their sleep through smoke inhalation and another died later in hospital.

Unconfirmed reports also said that the factory mainly hired women.

Russia remains a major source of employment for workers from Central Asia and the S.Caucasus although there have been accusations of substandard working conditions.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)

Kazakhstan expects delay in state asset IPO

AUG. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will wait until 2018 to start selling off state assets in what has been billed for years as the People’s IPO, Baljeet Kaur Grewal, managing director for portfolio investment at Samruk-Kazyna, the Kazakh sovereign wealth fund told Bloomberg in an interview. He said the fund wanted to wait for oil prices to pick up before selling various assets.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)

Armenia’s CBank cuts interest rates

AUG. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s Central Bank cut its key interest rate to 7.25% from 7.5% to help counter falling consumer prices, the lowest rate since 2014. Annualised deflation in Armenia measured 1.3% at the end of July, the Central Bank said, a trend that would continue.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 293, published on Aug. 29 2016)