Tag Archives: economy

Georiga pledges $606m to prop up economy

APRIL 1 (The Bulletin) — Georgia’s government pledged $606m to help business try to weather the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and the Central Bank said that it was relaxing its lending and capitalisation rules for smaller banks to free up another $400m.

On the $606m aid for businesses, Georgian PM Giorgi Gakharia said: “This is the help that will be directed to the maintenance of jobs, to the maintenance of companies, to the ongoing production of companies and to the maintenance of current businesses.”

The Central Bank has also been selling its US dollar reserves to prop up its currency. The lari has stabilised, although it is still at an all-time low.

Georgia’s economy ministry has said that the pandemic will knock the country’s GDP growth rate, but it has not said by how much.

ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 441 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Uzbekistan asks Asian Development Bank for loan

Leave a Reply

APRIL 1 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan asked the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for a $1b loan to help its economy deal with the shock of a protracted lockdown to defeat the coronavirus. The government had earlier said that it wants to set up a $1.1b fund to help business deal with the impact of the coronavirus. Pres. Shavkat Mirziyoyev has also said that he will cut taxes for businesses and the rates that people pay for electricity, water and gas. Alisher Usmanov, an ethnic Uzbek Russia-based billionaire, gave $20m to a charity building a new hospital to treat patients infected with COVID-19.

ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 441 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

IMF agrees to give Kyrgyzstan a loan of $120m to deal with the coronavirus

Leave a Reply

MARCH 27 (The Bulletin) — The IMF responded to Kyrgyzstan’s pleas for aid by agreeing a loan of $120m to help its economy survive the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Kyrgyz Pres. Sooronbai Jeenbekov said in an open letter to the IMF that without a loan, the country would struggle to recover from the economic hit.

The Kyrgyz som lost 16% of its value against the US dollar highlighting the economic impact that the country was already taking.

The Central Bank had been expected to increase its key interest rate to try to dampen anticipated rising inflation but instead it decided to keep rates at 5% (March 31).

ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 441 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Kazakhstan raises interest rates to protect currency against the coronavirus

Leave a Reply

MARCH 26 (The Bulletin) — Faced with a collapse in the value of its tenge currency, the Kazakh Central Bank raised interest rates by 2.75 percentage points to 12% on March 9. It confirmed on March 16 that it was going to maintain this rate.

On March 24, Kazakhstan also banned the export of all foodstuffs. Officials said that food was needed in Kazakhstan for now and that it could not afford to be exported. The government has also cut its economic outlook for 2020 partly, it needs to be stressed, because of the collapse of oil prices.

On March 17, the government also announced a series of tax cuts and cheap credit initiatives which it said would help business recover from the shock of the coronavirus. Retailers, restaurants, cinemas and other business forced to close because of lockdowns linked to curtailing the spread of the coronavirus will be exempt from property tax for a year. Banks have been told to defer loan repayments and the government will spend $750 million on infrastructure projects which will create 120,000 jobs.

ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 440 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Coronavirus worries spark panic buying in Tajikistan

Leave a Reply

MARCH 26 (The Bulletin) — Tajikistan has still not recorded any cases of the coronavirus but analysts have said that concerns about health safety have still triggered panic buying and food price spikes. Reports from Tajikistan said that staple goods, such as potatoes and meat have increased by around 60% in price.

Thousands of migrant Tajik workers in Russia have also been stranded in Moscow airports after airlines cancelled flights to Tajikistan. An impending recession in Russia, linked to the collapse in oil prices and the coronavirus, will have a knock-on effect on the Tajik economy. It is heavily reliant on remittances sent back from Russia by its migrant workers.

Rather like President Emomali Rakhmon apparently ignoring the spread of the coronavirus, the Tajik Central Bank has not issued any statement on it and on March 20 instead congratulated Tajiks on the Nowruz festival.

ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 440 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Kyrgyzstan bans export of foodstuffs

Leave a Reply

MARCH 26 (The Bulletin) — In Kyrgyzstan, the government on March 23 also banned the export of most foodstuffs. Three of the countries main cities — Bishkek, Osh and Jala-Abad — are in lockdown to try to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Like much of the rest of the region, Kyrgyzstan has closed down air links, in and out of the country, to deal with the coronavirus.

The Kyrgyz government has not laid out any financial aid of its own for businesses to deal with the economic fallout of the coronavirus but it has made an official request to the IMF for help.

ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 440 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Coronavirus forces Georgia’s tourist industry to close

Leave a Reply

TBILISI/March 26 (The Bulletin) — The spread of the coronavirus has forced Georgia’s tourism industry, a source of pride and economic strength over the past half a decade, to shut down. Businesses linked to the sector said that it may take years to rebuild.

Irakli Areshidze, a bar owner in Tbilisi, told a correspondent for The Bulletin that he had had to leave debts unpaid and abandon his business for now.

“It’s a very difficult situation,” he said. “We had to pay for the February expenses with the March income, but the March income was so low we needed to use the savings.”

The Georgian tourism sector has been marketed heavily in Europe and the Middle East. For Arabs it is an escape from the heat, for Europeans it is an exotic bridge towards the former Soviet Union.

Lika Jguburia has been working as a guide. He said that all the tour reservations until October have been cancelled.

“To lose a job and a major source of income is simply awful,” he said. “And it has happened so quickly.”

ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 440 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Coronavirus hit will drag down the Uzbek economy

Leave a Reply

MARCH 26 (The Bulletin) — The spread of the coronavirus, the global lockdown and the collapse of the travel tourism industry will hit Uzbekistan hard, at least in 2020. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has worked to open up the country over the past four years and has placed large emphasis on pulling in Western tourists.

The tourist season should be about to kick-off instead, some of the country’s biggest sites are empty.

Mr Mirziyoyev has also ordered the government to borrow $1b to try to help businesses recover from the impact of the coronavirus. The Uzbek justice ministry said that the country’s GDP growth for 2020 was likely to be 3.7%, compared to an earlier estimate of 5.5%.

The Uzbek Central Bank has said that businesses will also have an extended period to pay back any loans and told credit organisations to be lenient with its debt collecting.

ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 440 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

COMMENT: Kazakh government on defensive after activist dies

Leave a Reply

>> Concessions are likely from the Kazakh government as it works hard to contain the fallout from the death in police custody of an opposition activist, writes James Kilner.

MARCH 3 2020 (The Bulletin) — As The Bulletin was going to press, a court in the northeastern Kazakh city of Semey ordered the release of Mukhtar Dzhakishev, perhaps the country’s most high-profile political prisoner.

Dzhakishev has been in prison since 2009, sent down because of various financial crimes. He had been a high flyer within the Kazakh elite, at the time of his arrest he was head of the nuclear agency Kazatomptom, although the government of Nursultan Nazarbayev always doubted his loyalty.

Many people, including foreign governments, suspected that the real reason that Dzhakishev had been imprisoned was because he was close to Mukhtar Ablyazov, the billionaire owner of BTA Bank who fled to Moscow and then London in 2009 and set himself up as an opposition leader.

The theory goes that Nazarbayev couldn’t get to Ablyazov, and still hasn’t, but he could take out some of his key Kazakhstan-based associates, including Dzhakishev.

So why release Dzhakishev now? Afterall, Ablyazov is still acting as an opposition leader from his base in Paris and only last year a court rejected Dzhakishev’s appeal for his early release on health grounds.

The answer could well lie with the death in police custody of opposition activist Dulat Agadil. In life, Agadil had not been a particularly serious threat to the government but in death, he had become a powerful force for the government’s opponents to rally around. He died in police custody on Feb. 25 in murky circumstances. The government was quick to rush out a statement saying that Agadil had died of an underlying heart condition and not from police mistreatment. Not many ordinary people believe the government and the opposition had been quick to start organising demonstrations. The one on Saturday was snuffed out by the security forces but more were promised.

Perhaps the release of Dzhakishev was a carrot that Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev believed was needed to pacify opposition momentum. It has allowed him to show himself as a moderate and even-handed president.

It may also only be the beginning of the concessions that the Kazakh government is prepared to give out to contain the fallout from the death of Agadil. Whether it works or not, The Bulletin will be there to report and analyse in full.

— ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 438 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin

— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2020

Georgia’s economy grew 5.1% in 2019

Leave a Reply

FEB. 28 2020 (The Bulletin) — Georgia’s economy grew by 5.1% in the year to the end of January, data from the government showed. This is up from 3.5% growth recorded a year ago and shows that the strong Georgian economic growth is set to continue. The data was recorded, though, before the spread of the coronavirus out of China started hitting economies.
— ENDS

— This story was first published in issue 438 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin