DEC. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Inflation in Kazakhstan to the year ending Nov. 30 measured 12.8%, the state’s statistics committee said. The sharp prices rises show the impact of the tenge devaluation on the economy. The main inflation driver has been food prices.
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(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)
DEC. 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tajikistan’s somoni currency fell to its lowest ever level of 7/$1 just as the Central Bank was bringing in draconian new rules which will shut all independent exchange kiosks within two months.
So far this year, the somoni has lost 31% of its value. The Central Bank has previously admitted that it is on the verge of running out of money, having spent its reserves propping up its ailing currency.
The Central Bank issued a statement saying that the remaining 763 currency exchanges would be closed over the next few months and that people would only be allowed to make currency exchanges through the banks.
Ordinary Tajiks have seen this before. In April, the Central Bank issued a similar edict which closed half the exchange booths in the country. It didn’t stop the currency slide, though.
Between April and the end of November, the somoni fell from 5.8/$1 to 6.7/$1, a fall of 15.5%.
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(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.
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(News report from Issue No. 259, published on Dec. 4 2015)
NOV. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The IMF applauded Kazakhstan’s plans to sell off chunks of up to 50% in 43 high profile state-owned companies.
In a report, the IMF also said that ditching the tenge’s peg to the US dollar in August will push up inflation in the short term.
“The decision to float the exchange rate in August, followed by the introduction of a new policy interest rate (base rate) as the new monetary policy anchor in September, set in motion the process of modernizing the monetary policy framework,” the IMF said in its report.
Under pressure from depressed oil prices and a fall in the value of the rouble, the Kazakh Central Bank dropped its peg to the US dollar in August. The tenge plunged in value.
Strapped for cash, the Kazakh government said earlier this month that it wanted to sell off chunks of its biggest companies to private investors. The plan received a qualified endorsement from the IMF.
“We welcome these initiatives and the authorities’ objective of implementing the privatisation program competitively and in a way that ensures genuine private ownership and control,” it said.
The issue for investors is which stock market the government lists the shares on.
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(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)
NOV. 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kyrgyz Central Bank is spending so much cash trying to defend its som currency that it is considering selling off its stock of diamonds.
Tolkunbek Abdygulov, the Central Bank chief, said that the bank had already sold large amounts of gold and that silver and diamonds were next.
“We started selling gold this year, next year are going to add silver bullion to this and have discussed the options of even selling diamonds,” he said according to media reports. Mr Abdygulov didn’t say whether Kyrgyzstan held substantial diamond reserves or not.
The Kyrgyz Central Bank has intervened 22 times this year in the currency market. This week it spent another $7m defending the som which at one point fell nearly 5% to an all-time low of around 79/$1. After the Central Bank intervention it rose back to around 74/$1.
The Central Bank’s reserves have fallen from $2.2b at the start of the year to about $1.7b now.
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(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)
NOV. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s producer price index (PPI) rose by 8.3% in the year to the end of October, the national statistics agency said, indicating that inflation is built into Georgia’s economy. The biggest pressure on prices over this period was from a 10% jump in electricity prices.
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(News report from Issue No. 257, published on Nov. 20 2015)
NOV. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Seemingly trying to defy logic, the Kazakh government said it wanted to double tax on petrol but that the price rise would not add to inflationary pressure in the economy.
The day after economy minister Yerbolat Dossayev said that he wanted to increase tax on petrol, the new head of the Kazakh Central Bank Daniyer Akishev also said inflation this year in Kazakhstan was likely to be above even the upper 8% estimate.
The tenge has almost halved in value since the Central Bank ditched its US dollar peg in August, forcing prices up across economy.
Shortly after the tenge lost its US dollar peg, the government also ditched it price control over petrol, allowing prices to increase to match the tenge devaluation.
And now Mr Dossayev has said that he wants tax on a tonne of petrol to rise to 10,500 tenge ($16.70) from 5,000 tenge ($34.10) which would equal, roughly, to an increase of around 5% for consumers.
Petrol prices have already risen around 25% this year and any further increase will be unpopular.
As for inflation in general, Mr Akishev, made Central Bank chief at the start of the month, said targeting inflation was now his highest priority.
“Our task now is to ensure stable inflation and get back to the range of 6-8% in 2016,” he said.
The problem for Kazakhstan is that with oil prices continuing to be suppressed, pressure builds on the tenge to fall further which means that inflationary pressure also builds.
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(News report from Issue No. 257, published on Nov. 20 2015)
NOV. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Prices in Armenia grew by 4.4% in the first 10 months of the year, media quoted the National Statistics Service as saying, pointing to high overall inflation for 2015.
Inflation has forced its way back onto the top of Central Bankers’ agenda this year. A collapse in local currencies’ values against the US dollar has triggered a sharp rise in prices for energy imports and domes- tic electricity production.
Inflation in Armenia is probably lagging inflation in neighbouring Georgia because the government has chosen to suck up the cost of the electricity price rises rather than pass
it on to consumers after a series of major demonstrations in the summer. In Georgia, the government has more successfully passed the cost of the electricity production on to consumers.
But, importantly, with another two months of the year to be factored into the final calculation, inflation in Armenia is already running above the initial estimates in the 2015 budget.
Trade turnover is also down, 20% lower in the first 10 months of the year compared to the same period in 2014. This is generally in-line with other economies across the Central Asia and South Caucasus region.
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(News report from Issue No. 257, published on Nov. 20 2015)
NOV. 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The amount of cash in Kyrgyzstan’s banking system held in foreign currencies jumped by 6.7% to nearly 65% between January and August, the Central Bank said according to Kyrgyz media reports.
This is a steep rise and highlights a lack of confidence in Kyrgyzstan’s som. It has lost around 26% of its value against the US dollar this year despite repeated interventions by the Central Bank to prop it up.
Inflation has also increased, although this has slowed over the past couple of months, pressuring people’s savings.
Interest rates are at a 10%, lower than they were at the start of the year but higher than at any time since 2012.
Like its neighbours, Kyrgyzstan has been struggling to deal with the fallout from a deepening economic malaise which has hit the region. One of its biggest problems has been a sharp drop in remittances sent back to Kyrgyzstan from workers in Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)
NOV. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Inflation in Georgia hit 5.8% for the 12 months to the end of October, the Geostat statistics agency said, the highest rate of price increases since 2011. Geostat said that health care, electricity and various house- hold goods and furnishings had pushed up prices.
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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)