Tag Archives: Georgia

Georgian opposition TV channel nears closure

OCT. 2 2015, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s main opposition TV channel Rustavi2 said it will have to stop broadcasting within days unless it finds more cash quickly after a court seized a controlling stake in the company.

The court blocked the sale of the 51% stake to a relative of a former defence minister, a sale that had been considered vital to keep Rustavi2 afloat after an earlier decision linked to a row with a former shareholder handed control of the TV channel’s assets to the authorities.

At a press conference at the TV channel’s HQ in Tbilisi, Rustavi2 director Nika Gvaramia said that its closure was imminent.

“The current government, lead by Ivanishvili promises democracy, but they have finally done what they have wanted to do for the past four years — shut Rustavi2 down,” he said.

Bidzina Ivanishvili is Georgia’s richest man and architect of the ruling Georgian Dream coalition.

Since winning a parliamentary election in 2012 and a presidential election a year later, Mr Ivanishvili and Georgian Dream have been trying to purge Georgia of remnants of former president Mikheil Saakashvili and his allies.

And analysts said that Rustavi2, one of only three main TV channels, has long been in his sights.

Maia Mikashavidze, a Tbilisi-based professor of mass communication, said Rustavi2 is considered one of the few voices critical of the current government and that the decision by the court to block the sale of the stake did carry a political undertone.

“Rustavi2’s operations are seriously threatened and may stall any time because the station is short of cash because of insufficient ad sales,” Ms Mikashavidze said.

“This limits access to alternative views and facts for a huge numbers of viewers who rely on Rustavi2 for that service.”

In Kutaisi, hundreds of people rallied in front of parliament to demand that the government take action to protect Rustavi2.

The US government, which has previously criticised Mr Ivanishvili and his supporters for their excessive zeal in prosecuting people and companies linked to Mr Saakashvili, said that it was concerned about the case.

“We do not like to see any kind of limitation on this pluralistic media environment.” US Ambassador Ian Kelley said in a statement.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)

Georgia debates Marijuana

SEPT. 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia moved a step closer to ditch- ing prison sentences for people found with a small amount of marijuana after a parliamentary committee backed the proposal. The legal affairs committee said that it still wanted marijuana use to be illegal but not punishable with a prison sentence. Parliament is likely to vote on the issue later this year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)

Blair to visit Georgia

SEPT. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili met with former British PM Tony Blair during his trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly, media reported. Mr Blair apparently accepted an invitation from Mr Garibashvili to visit Georgia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)

Markets: Interest rates up in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Georgia

OCT. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The three countries in the Central Asia and South Caucasus region with currencies floating freely (or partially so) have all increased their key interest rate.

Kazakhstan was the last to do so, bringing its key interest rate to 16% from the previous level of 12%. The 12% mark had only been set at the start of September, highlighting just how seriously the Kazakh Central Bank had underestimated the threat from inflation in its initial calculations. The Kyrgyz Central Bank raised its benchmark rate to 10%, up by 2 percentage points. Last week, Georgia increased rates to 7% from 6%.

The bottom line is that all three countries fear inflation. Kyrgyzstan has tried to hold off, while the Central Bank intervened lightly in the currency market to defend the som, but both foreign trade and remittances from abroad have declined, putting the Kyrgyz economy in an uncomfortable position.

Although probably necessary, these measures might not be enough to avoid climbing inflation in the coming months.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 250, published on Oct. 2 2015)

Georgia jails former mayor

SEPT. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The day after winning a case against the Georgian government for keeping him in pre-trial detention for 14 months, Gigi Ugulava was found guilty of misspending public funds when he was the mayor of Tbilisi. He was jailed for 4-1⁄2 years. Separately, a judge acquitted Ugulava of money laundering.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Georgia picks banking board

SEPT. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The members of Georgia’s new Banking Supervisory Board are all close allies of former PM Bidzina Ivanishvili, drawing immediate allegations of cronyism. The Banking Supervisory Board replaces the Central Bank as the authority over commercial banks. The head of the board is Konstantine Sulamanidze, former CEO of Progress Bank in which Mr Ivanishvili owns a stake.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Georgian rugby team wins

SEPT. 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Causing something of an upset, the Georgian rugby team beat Tonga 17-10 in their opening match of the Rugby World Cup in England. Georgia has the best national rugby team in the former Soviet Union and is ranked 13th in the world.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Georgia bets on Bitcoins

SEPT. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — BitFury, a company linked closely to Bitcoin, will build the first Technology Park in Georgia and has pledged to invest $100m in the project (Sept. 24). The Park is being built in Gldani a district of Tbilisi. BitFury provides technological infrastructure for Blockchain, the virtual wallet for the Bitcoin payment network. It already operates a data centre in Gori, 70km west of Tbilisi.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Georgia’s Central Bank intervenes

SEPT. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s Central Bank said it bought $27m worth of lari to strengthen its currency. This is the 6th intervention by the Central Bank this year to prop up its currency which has lost around 37% since September 2014. It said earlier this year that it wouldn’t prop up its currency.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Comment: Georgian CBank’s blunt assessment

SEPT. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Georgian Central Bank is one of the more open central banks in the region. It holds scheduled meeting and posts reasonably detailed explanations on its monetary policy decisions.

In short it can give people interested in Central Asia and the South Caucasus something of an insider’s view of things. This makes its statement on Sept. 23 that accompanied an interest rate rise all the more important.

And the Georgian Central Bank was blunt in its assessment of the problems facing the wider region.

“Real GDP growth in the second quarter was consistent with the forecasts,” it said. “The factor hindering growth is the external sector, which, given the dire economic situation in the region negatively affects export of goods and services.”

Of course the Georgian Central Bank was talking about poor GDP growth in Georgia but the more important word in this statement for the wider region was “dire”. The Georgian Central Bank had said what other government economists from Tajikistan to Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan and Armenia have been thinking but shying away from saying. The prospects for their economies, with inflation rising and the values of their currencies falling, is dire.

Of course there are differences between the various regional economies – Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are heavily dependent on oil and gas sales, for example, while Georgia isn’t – but many of the pressures are shared ones and if one Central Bank, in this case the Georgian one, starts describing the situation as “dire” it is important to listen.

By James Kilner, Editor, The Conway Bulletin

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)