JULY 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Elman Rustamov, the Azerbaijani Central Bank chief, said that at current oil prices, Azerbaijan’s economy will continue to grow. Mr Rustamov may have been trying to reassure a jittery public. Azerbaijan’s economy has been coping with the fallout of a drop in oil prices and a downturn in Russian economic prospects.
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(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
JUNE 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Geostat, the Georgian statistics agency, reported an increase in year-on-year GDP growth to an estimated 2.1% in May, up from 0.9% in April. The economic data will be welcome news for the Georgian government which has been under pressure because of a downturn in the economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 238, published on July 2 2015)
JUNE 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan is one of the least energy efficient countries in the world for generating economic growth, Tomasz Telma, regional director for Europe, Middle East and North Africa at the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, told Bnews.kz.
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(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s GDP deflator outstripped its nominal GDP growth for the second consecutive quarter, official data showed, highlighting the stagnating economy. Georgia’s GDP deflator measured 5.1% in Q1, compared to GDP growth of 3.1% nominal GDP growth. The GDP deflator is an important measure of real GDP growth. The GDP deflator last outstripped nominal GDP growth in 2011.
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(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Uzbek legislation rubber- stamped the government’s report on fulfilling the 2014 and 2015 budget which reported GDP growth of 8.1% despite a general downturn in economic conditions across the region.
The glowing numbers appear at odds with other economic indicators leaking out of the country.
According to analysts interviewed by the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Uzbek service, brewing financial trouble, triggered by the government’s failure to pay salaries, pensions and stipends over the last several months could spark turmoil.
The Uzbek economy has been shrinking over the last couple years caused by falling global oil prices, a boycott of Uzbek cotton and diminishing remittances from Uzbek labour migrants in Russia as predicted by the World Bank. The World Bank has said that Uzbekistan’s economy will shrink further in 2015-16.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Official Turkmen websites reported another rise in GDP, throwing into serious doubt the authenticity of official economic statistics. The official turkmenistan.ru said GDP had registered a year-on- year increase in the first five months of the year of 9.5% despite a currency devaluation and low global energy prices.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – At the fourth EU-Tajikistan Cooperation Committee in Brussels, the European delegation confirmed it had earmarked 251m euro for Tajikistan over the next five years to improve rural areas. The EU said the aid was more necessary now because of the drop in remittances.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s GDP was 6.9% higher at the end of May than it was a year earlier, the Kyrgyz national statistics office said. The main driver of this growth was the Kumtor gold mine, Kyrgyzstan’s largest industrial project.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s economic picture this year is emerging. Its GDP increased by 2.2% in the first quarter of the year compared with 3.1% in January-March 2014. A slight drop, but not as bad as it could be.
On a trip to the city of Artashat, outside Yerevan, PM Hovik Abrahamyan said that he was pleased with the how the data was emerging.
“We have 2.3% (economic activity) growth for the first 4 months which is usually passive,” he said.
“The programs that we are implementing and the laws we are adopting can become the basis by which we will surely have more than 2.3% economic growth. We will do everything to reach 4.1% GD growth tar- get,” he said.
Like the rest of the region, the impact of falling oil prices on Russia’s economy twinned with sanctions have rippled wider and hit the South Caucasus and also Central Asia.
Mr Abrahamyan said Armenia may be able to reach GDP growth of 4.1% this year because of a number of projects in the pipeline. He highlighted increased agriculture activity of 6.6% in the first quarter of the year and a redress on the remittances’ reduction expected from Russia.
The IMF and the World Bank have said that remittances will drop by up to 40%. The Armenian Central Bank said that the figure is likely to be nearer 25% or 30%. And this is really the crux. If remittances fall sharply, GDP will too.
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(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)
JUNE 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s government has slashed its economic growth forecast for 2015, Reuters reported.
It said that rather than the bullish prediction of growth at 6.2% in 2015, up from 3.6% in 2014 because of increased output at the Kumtor gold mine, growth would actually slow to 2%.
This reduced economic growth rate will also increase the size of its budget deficit, Reuters reported. This will rise to 5.7% of GDP from 3.3%.
Reuters said the new figures had been noted on Kyrgyz government documents.
Kyrgyzstan’s economic woes are shared by other countries across the region. It is strug- gling to deal with the fall-out from a downturn in Russia’s economy triggered by the doublehit of a sharp fall in oil prices around the world and also the impact of sanctions imposed by the West on Russia for its meddling in Ukraine.
Remittances from workers labouring in Russia are one of Kyrgyzstan’s main currency earners. The World Bank has said that this is likely to be down by 40% on 2014.
At a meeting with reporters in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s economy minister Oleg Pankratov explained the severity of the downturn.
“Our main partners are in deep crisis due to the rouble’s plunge … and economic sanc- tions,” she said, according to Reuters.
“Our migrants have started to transfer less cash.”
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(News report from Issue No. 234, published on June 4 2015)