DEC. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian president Giorgi Margvelashvili appointed Giorgi Abashishvili, his economics adviser, as head of his presidential administration. Media said Mr Abashishvili was the third head of the presidential administration since Mr Margvelashvili took office in 2013.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)
DEC. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia has completed its 178km section of the revamped Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway that links the Caspian Sea with the Turkish border, media reported. Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey agreed to upgrade the railway line 10 years ago to boost trade. The upgrade work has been delayed and has overrun its budget.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)
DEC. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Year-on-year inflation in Georgia rose to 6.3% from 5.8%, the national statistics agency said, its highest level for four years. Although the year-on-year rate is rising, the month-on-month rate has slowed to 0.3% from 0.8% in October and 1.1% in September. Like other economies, Georgia’s currency has lost value this year, pushing up the cost of imports.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)
DEC. 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian security forces arrested four men in a village in the west of the country who they said were planning various terrorist attacks, one week after the extremist group IS called for a revolution in Georgia.
The deputy head of Georgia’s security services, Levan Izoria, said that the arrests were made during a search of 11 houses.
“Information had been obtained identifying several individuals who support Islamic State ideology,” media quoted him as saying.
A photo taken after the arrests showed several heavily armed Georgian security forces personnel wearing combat uniforms leading four men in handcuffs.
Georgia is concerned about IS using it as a transit country to send recruits to Syria. IS recruits travelling to Syria have flown to Tbilisi and then travelled west to the border with Turkey. From there they can reach Syria. Since an attack in Paris last month that killed 130 people Georgia has boosted its border controls.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)
NOV. 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Vita Product, a Georgian dairy company, opened a processing plant in Tsalka, 90km west of Tbilisi. The plant, co-financed by the state under the programme Agro Processing Enterprises, will process more than 3,000 tonnes of raw materials and produce cheese and butter.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)
NOV. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s parliament approved an increase of 96m lari ($40m) in next year’s budget to improve healthcare. The extra cash will be used by the ministry of health to bring in its universal healthcare programme. Introducing universal healthcare is a key policy of the ruling Georgian Dream coalition.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)
NOV. 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The EU is preparing to give Georgia a 100m euro grant to help its public administration, farming and rural development sectors improve and move towards European standards, the EU commissioner for enlargement, Johannes Hahn, said on a trip to Tbilisi. Georgia wants to eventually join the EU.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)
NOV. 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s security services said it had strengthened its border controls after at least 130 people were killed in Paris earlier this month by so- called Islamic radicals. Recruiters sending people to IS in Syria have used Georgia as a transit country to access east Turkey.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)
NOV. 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Oil producers suffered in the London stock market this week, due to mixed industrial announcements.
Tethys Petroleum shares lost 13% in one week closing at 4.25p on Friday. Nostrum Oil & Gas was on track to a similar fall after it lost 9% on Monday, recovering later in the week after it showed its investment plans for a new gas treatment facility. On Friday, Nostrum closed at 376p, down 3.5%. Roxi Petroleum shares closed at 7.75p on Friday, down 5% from last week.
Central Asia Metals lost 2.2% this week to close at 161.5p on Friday, while the other major miner in Kazakhstan, KAZ Minerals, gained 7.8% to 99.8p.
Newly-listed Georgia Healthcare Group lost around 2% this week to close at 177p on Friday.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)
NOV. 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The only currency that moved substantially this week was the Kyrgyz som, which lost 2.3%, closing at 74/$1 on Friday.
The Kyrgyz Central Bank intervened heavily this week to prop up its currency, which looked like it was losing traction and could have spiralled downwards. During the day on Nov. 26, the exchange rate had surged to 77-79 som/dollar, which prompted the Central Bank to sell $7m in the currency market and enabled the currency to recover somewhat and move back to 74/$1.
Tolkunbek Abdygulov, the Central Bank chief, said this week the exchange rate was influenced by speculators.
All other currencies were stable.
In the South Caucasus, the Georgian lari maintained its level of 2.40/$1 and the Armenian dram was also stable at 480.8/$1.
In Central Asia, the Kazakh tenge floated at around 307/$1 throughout
the week. The Tajik somoni continued its gentle depreciation, and now trades at 6.7/$1.
The dollaruz.com website which monitored the Black Market rate for the Uzbek sum, appears to have closed.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)