JUNE 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s parliament approved a $150m loan from the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) to build a north-south motorway across the country. The EBD is headquartered in Almaty and is bankrolled mainly by Russia and Kazakhstan. It concentrates on member states of the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union.
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(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – After 19 years of negotiations, Kazakhstan will join the World Trade Organisation (WTO) later this year after officially agreeing terms with the economic group.
President Nursultan Nazarbayev was quick to appear on TV to laud the success of the WTO entry .
“The WTO membership opens up new horizons for our econ- omy,” Mr Nazarbayev said on national TV.
Commodities make up most of Kazakhstan’s foreign trade, already carried at very low tariffs.
Tariffs are at the centre of the debate on Kazakhstan’s WTO membership.
It is also part of the Russia-led Customs Union, which morphed into the Eurasian Economic Union this year. This is, essentially, an old-school trade bloc which promotes free trade between members but puts up barriers to non-members. The other members of the Eurasian
Economic Union are Russia, Belarus and Armenia. Kyrgyzstan is on the brink of joining.
Even so, the WTO and Kaza- khstan appear to have found a way around this potential stumbling block, although the details are scant.
Kazakh industrials have also been reticent about joining the WTO.
“Our community is concerned that the accession into the WTO would seriously reduce the protection levels and cause the flooding of cheap goods into our markets, which would kill our production,” Rakhim Oshak- bayev, deputy chairman of the National Chamber of Entrepre- neurs, told Kazakh media.
The terms of the accession remain classified and analysts have questioned this secrecy. When it first applied to join the organisation in 1996, Kazakhstan was a poor country which had just emerged from the ashes of the Soviet Union. Now, the scenario is different.
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(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan will only see the benefits of its membership of the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union in 2017, media quoted economy minister Oleg Pankratov as saying. He said inflation will initially soar in Kyrgyzstan once it joins the economic group.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Doctors and other health workers will leave Kyrgyzstan for better paid jobs in Kazakhstan and Russia now that the country has joined the Kremlin- led Eurasian Economic Union, media quoted Kyrgyz health minister Talantbek Batyraliyev as saying. Kyrgyzstan’s health service is already in a precarious states.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
MAY 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s deputy economy minister, Garegin Melkonyan, said that although Armenia was a member of the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union, it wanted a deal with the EU that was as close as possible to an Association Agreement.
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(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)
MAY 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan extended a ban on the import of higher grade oil- products from Russia until June 20, the ministry of energy said, potentially enflaming a growing trade row between the two neighbours.
This is the second extension to the ban on A92/93 diesel fuel, first imposed for 40 days on March 5 to protect domestic producers against cheap Russian imports.
The Russian rouble has roughly halved in value over the past year, mainly because of the slump in oil prices, while the Kazakh Central Bank has defended its currency vigorously.
This created a large imbal- ance in prices.
This year Moscow and Astana have banned various products under the guise of breaking health regulations. In reality, though, Commentators have said the various ban on foodstuffs has been a low-level trade war.
The irony is that Kazakhstan and Russia are supposed to have reduced trade barriers after the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union which also includes Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.
Separately, the Kazakh energy ministry also announced it was increasing petrol prices slightly.
The government controls petrol prices. It has previously reduced them.
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(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)
MAY 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Less than two years after Armenia appeared to turn its back on the EU by agreeing to sign up to the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union, the EU wants to start negotiating a new treaty to deepen political and economic ties with Yerevan, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty quoted an unnamed official in Brussels as saying.
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(News report from Issue No. 232, published on May 20 2015)
MAY 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kremlin-led Eurasian Eco- nomic Union officially signed up Kyrgyzstan as its fifth member after Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Armenia. Before Kyrgyzstan actually joins, though, the Kyrgyz parliament has to ratify the deal. Kyrgyzstan is worried about the impact on its trade with China.
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(News report from Issue No. 231, published on May 13 2015)
MAY 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev said the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union had a strong future despite current trade problems. Mr Nazarbayev made the comments after meeting Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Kazakhstan and Russia have erected trade barriers over the past few months.
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(News report from Issue No. 231, published on May 13 2015)
APRIL 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan will miss a May 8 deadline to join the Kremlin- led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), the new PM Temir Sariyev said. Kyrgyzstan still plans to join but not until the end of the month. Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia are already members.
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(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)