Tag Archives: food

Israel to build poultry plant in Kazakhstan

DEC. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Israeli poultry processing company BAL International said it will build a new food chain plant in Kazakhstan. The company, which owns two factories in Israel, plans to install a new production line in the Almaty region. Its business will be mostly geared towards exports to China. The company also plans to kick-start a mutton export line from Kazakhstan to Israel. The deal was signed during Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s official visit to Astana.

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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)f

PepsiCo plans expansion in Kyrgyzstan

NOV. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — US giant food, snacks and beverage manufacturer PepsiCo will expand its production line to produce 2.5 tonnes of cottage cheese annually at its factory in Bishkek. PepsiCo entered the Kyrgyz market in 2010, after buying a 66% stake in Russian dairy producer Wimm-Bill- Dann for $3.8b. It produces its cottage cheese under the Merry Milkman brand.

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(News report from Issue No. 307, published on Dec. 2 2016)

Kazakhstan-based financial institutions sign agreement

NOV. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan-based financial institution Almex Holding and Dutch company Staay Food Group signed an agreement to create a joint venture to develop agribusiness in Kazakhstan. They want to create a distribution network with local farmers. At a later stage, Staay Food said it plans to build greenhouses to boost exports of fresh fruits and vegetables. Almex group controls Halyk Bank, Kazakhstan’s second- largest bank, and is owned by President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s daughter Dinara and her husband, Timur Kulibayev.

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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)

Kyrgyz MPs blame EEU for blocking meat exports

BISHKEK, NOV. 17 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyz MPS blamed the Eurasian Economic Union for unfair restrictions which have slowed meat exports.

The criticism of the Eurasian Economic Union, and the implied bias towards the bigger member states, is just the latest attacked on the Kremlin-led economic bloc from Kyrgyz politicians and businesses who have always been sceptical of the benefits of joining.

Earlier this year, Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev said that the Eurasian Economic Union had actually resulted in a drop in exports and also created mountains of extra red tape for businesses to deal with.

In parliament, Kyrgyz PM Sooronbai Jeenbekov said that meat producers have not been able to export to Eurasian Economic Union states since it joined the bloc because of alleged sanitary infractions.

“Kyrgyzstan fulfils all terms of the Eurasian economic union,” he said. “But protection of individual interests does not contribute to the deepening and strengthening of integration as a whole.”

A few weeks ago, Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev accused Kazakhstan, also a Eurasian Economic Union member, of reneging on a promise to build a new site on the border that would have allowed Kyrgyz producers to receive the necessary paperwork needed to export meat. He alleged that Kazakhstan was trying to prevent Kyrgyz meat imports to stamp out competition.

Like the rest of the Central Asia and South Caucasus region, Kyrgyzstan has been dealing with an economic downturn since 2014 linked to a fall in oil prices that triggered a recession in the Russian economy. Kyrgyz timing in joining the Eurasian Economic Union in August 2015 means that it has become even more tightly bound to Russia.

The Eurasian Economic Union includes Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Armenia.

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(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)

EBRD gives loan to Turkmenistan

OCT. 17 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The EBRD lent $850,000 to Gul Zaman, Turkmenistan’s largest events and catering company, to expand its business and create a premium industrial-scale bakery. The EBRD said that the EU will also provide grants and training for the project. Last month, the EBRD gave a $2.8m loan to a Turkmen brewer to build a potato crisp plant.

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(News report from Issue No. 301, published on Oct. 21 2016)

Korea to invest in food programme of Kyrgyzstan

OCT. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Korea International Cooperation Agency will send $4m to the United Nations World Food Programme to implement a three-year programme aimed at improving food security in four regions of Kyrgyzstan. The project will target the poorest areas of the Batken, Jalal-Abad, Osh and Naryn provinces in central and south Kyrgyzstan.

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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)

Turkmen brewer borrows $2.8m to build factory to produce crisps

SEPT. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan may be known around the world for making intricate carpets, breeding fine horses and pumping enough gas out of the ground to help power China, but now it wants to branch out into crisp production.

The EBRD said that it was lending Turkmen brewer Berk $2.8m to build a potato crisp plant.

“Already a leading producer on the Turkmen beer market, Berk hopes to also become a frontrunner in potato chips production in the country, where most chips (crisps) are currently imported,” the EBRD wrote in a press release.

Berk and the EBRD will face some significant cultural challenges trying to spread crisp eating in Turkmenistan, though.

Sales of spirits, mainly vodka, currently dwarf beer sales and, while crisps are particularly popular as a beer snack in Britain, they are still viewed with suspicion in other countries. In Russia, for example, the norm is to eat salty, chewy cheese with beer.

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(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)

China to invest in Uzbekistan’s food processing

JULY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — China’s Xinjiang Silu Changlong Investment said it will partner with Uzbekistan’s ministry of economy to establish a $28.7m food processing, packaging and logistics centre in Bukhara, in the south of the country.

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(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

McDonald’s finally opens in Kazakh city

ALMATY, JUNE 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — To much excitement, and a little controversy, McDonald’s opened its first restaurant in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s biggest city.

This is the second McDonald’s in Kazakhstan after a restaurant it opened in Astana in March.

At the opening on the site of an old cinema which heritage activists had campaigned to try and protect, Kairat Boranbayev, owner of the McDonald’s franchise in Kazakhstan and Belarus, said that the company aimed to build a total of 15 stores in Almaty and 10 in Astana.

The long-awaited opening of the McDonald’s restaurants has been one of the few positives for President Nursultan Nazarbayev this year, marked by a sharp drop in Kazakhstan’s economic outlook because of a recession in Russia and a fall in oil prices. Ordinary Kazakhs have seen inflation rise, jobs disappear and tenge savings wiped out.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Children in Armenia stunted, UN WFP reports

MARCH 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – A joint report from the UN’s World Food Programme and Armenia’s Statistics Committee said that around 19% of Armenian children under the age of five are stunted, a consequence of widespread malnourishment in the country. The report also noted that around 15% of the surveyed pool is overweight. This is commonly known as a “double malnutrition burden” which can become a public health concern if it spreads across the population. The report concluded that the Armenian government needs to take action to invert this negative trend.

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(News report from Issue No. 273, published on March 25 2016)