OCT. 17 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan may consider privatising its postal service, Azerpost, information minister, Ali Abasov, told journalists. Mr Abasov said that Azerpost’s performance had been poorer than expected. There are roughly 1,500 post offices in Azerbaijan providing a variety of services.
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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)
OCT. 22 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Three days after being sworn in for his third term as Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev. replaced his long-serving defence minister General Safar Abiyev. Gen Abiyev had been defence minister since 1995. Opposition figures have accused him of corruption.
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(News report from Issue No. 157, published on Oct. 23 2013)
OCT. 7 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a high-profile corruption case, police charged the former head of Kazakhstan’s Statistics Agency, Anar Meshimbayeva, with stealing 758m tenge ($4.9m) from a budget allocated for a national census in 2009. Ms Meshimbayeva fled Kazakhstan but was arrested in Moscow earlier this year and deported back to Kazakhstan.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
OCT. 8 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan will increase spending on military kit again next year, media reported quoting the national budget. Since 2000, Azerbaijan, with its oil and gas fuelled economy, has increased spending on military equipment 10-fold.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
OCT. 9 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — If the outgoing Kazakh Central Bank chief Grigory Marchenko was an independent-minded career finance-man, Kairat Kelimbetov, the new one, could not be more different.
Mr Kelimbetov, 44, has instead picked a career path through the ranks of Kazakh officialdom based on efficiency and party loyalty. Now he has been thrust into the spotlight as the surprise choice of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev to replace Mr Marchenko.
Some say Mr Nazarbayev sacked Mr Marchenko, others that he resigned for family reasons. Whatever the reason, Mr Kelimbetov takes over a demanding brief. Mr Nazarbayev has said that he wants to unite Kazakhstan’s pension funds. There is also intensifying downward pressure on the tenge.
Mr Kelimbetov is the son of a well-known Kazakh academic. His peers are the group of Kazakhs in their mid-40s who are now assuming some of the top jobs. These include Timur Kulibayev, the president’s son-in-law.
He started his career at various government planning departments before becoming the minister of economy in 2002. That posting launched his career which began to carry the hallmarks of a favourite of Mr Nazarbayev.
Mr Kelimbetov was made a deputy head of Mr Nazarbayev’s Nur Otan political party in 2007 and for a few months in 2008 he was head of the presidential administration, a powerful position. In 2008, he took over as chairman of Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna until 2012 when he became a deputy prime minister.
At each stage of his career, Mr Kelimbetov has parachuted into a role picked for him by Mr Nazarbayev. Heading the Central Bank is another important notch in his distinctive career resume.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
OCT. 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev sacked the country’s long-serving Central Bank chief Grigory Marchenko in a surprise move that may sow doubt over Kazakhstan’s economic direction.
Former economy minister Kairat Kelimbetov will take over from Mr Marchenko.
Mr Nazarbayev didn’t give a clear reason for sacking Mr Marchenko, considered a favourite of investors. Mr Marchenko, 53, was brought in to head Kazakhstan’s Central Bank for a second time in 2009 to help weather the financial crisis. Under his leadership Kazakhstan nationalised a handful of banks that were teetering on the brink of collapse and devalued the tenge national currency.
Mr Marchenko won international plaudits and in 2011 was touted as a possible replacement for Dominique Strass- Kahn, the disgraced French politician, as head of the IMF.
More recently, Kazakhstan’s Central Bank has been grappling with downward pressure on the tenge and the reorganisation of the country’s pension funds.
Mr Nazarbayev may have just decided that it was time for a change and to replace the notoriously independent-minded Mr Marchenko with the more pliant Mr Kelimbetov.
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(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)
OCT. 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev sacked his Central Bank chief, Grigory Marchenko. Mr Marchenko had been head of Kazakhstan’s central bank since 2009. Mr Nazrarbayev didn’t give a clear reason for sacking Mr Marchenko. Former economy minister Kairat Kelimbetov was named as the new Central Bank chief.
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(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)
SEPT. 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kim Kardashian, the 32-year-old Los Angeles-based ethnic Armenian, is best known across the globe for starring in a reality TV show. Now she’ll also be known, in some circles at least, for lending her name to Armenia’s inaugural sovereign debt issue.
Armenia’s $700m Eurobond issue on Sept. 23, unofficially dubbed the ‘Kardashian bond’, did rather well. This was Armenia’s first sovereign debt issue and a real test of investors’ confidence in the country and appetite for risk in the South Caucasus.
Armenia’s government had said it needed to raise the cash to pay back a $500m loan it borrowed from Russia in 2009 to weather the global financial crisis.
It’s been a busy, somewhat controversial, year for Armenia with a disputed presidential election in February and a surprise decision last month to eschew closer ties with the EU to instead join Russia’s Customs Union. The economy, too, has caused some concern with inflation hovering around 9%, far above the Central Bank’s target.
Regardless, investors warmed to Armenia’s Kardashian bond and the initial yield on the 7-year bond was shortened to 6.25% from 6.375%, according to Reuters.
Not a bad debut on the sovereign debt market for Armenia and Kim Kardashian.
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(News report from Issue No. 153, published on Sept. 25 2013)
SEPT. 13 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Interest in investing on the Baku Stock Exchange is growing, local media quoted Rufat Aslani, the Azerbaijani government official in charge of regulating securities, as saying. Mr Aslani said three IPOs were planned by the end of 2013, including Goldenpay, an online payment systems, which plans to sell 10% of its stock.
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(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)
SEPT. 12 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — KazPost has started to close dozens of branches in villages with less than 2,000 inhabitants, media reported. As well as delivering mail, KazPost provides vital services, such as paying out pensions and salaries and taking in tax and utilities bills. KazPost announced the closures this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)