FEB. 14 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s Central Bank cut its key interest rate yet again to 6% from 6.25%, hoping to give its economy a boost. Armenia has now slashed its interest rate from 10.5% in 2015. The Central Bank’s biggest worry is deflation. Annualised deflation in January measured 0.6%, the Central Bank said.
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(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)
TBILISI, JAN. 25 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia increased its key interest rate by 0.25% to 6.75%, its highest level since September 2016, because it said that inflation was beginning to pick up again.
The data shows that consumer demand in Georgia is still weak, year- on-year prices rises in December were measured at 1.8%, but the Central Bank said that its forecasts showed inflation rising throughout the rest of the year.
“The monetary policy decision is based on the macroeconomic forecast, according to which while demand side pressure on prices is weak, inflation is expected to be above its target rate for the most of the 2017,” it said in a statement.
Georgia’s inflation target was 5% for 2016 and is 4% for 2017.
Georgia has cut taxes on reinvested company profit, pledged to invest an extra 600m lari ($225m) in infrastructure projects and cut a free- trade deal with China.
Also on Jan. 25, Bloomberg News published an interview with Georgian finance minister Dimitri Kumsishvili. He said that a blend of tax cuts and spending on infrastructure would help Georgia’s economy grow by more than the predicted 4%.
Last year, weighed down by a collapse in the value of its currency a recession in Russia and the poor economic condition of its neighbours Azerbaijan and Armenia, annual GDP growth in Georgia measured 2.7%.
Since June 2016, Georgia’s lari currency has lost 21% of its value. The Georgian Central Bank has largely refused to buckle to demands to spend wildly to support the lari’s value and Mr Kumsishvili was adamant that the best way to strengthen it was through the economy.
“Strengthening the economy is the answer for the lari rate, this is the main task,” he told Bloomberg.
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(News report from Issue No. 314, published on Jan. 27 2017)
JAN. 9 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s Central Bank held its key interest rate as 12% at its first monetary session of 2017 but hinted that cuts would come later in the year to boost economic activity. The challenge for the Kazakh Central Bank is to boost economic activity without undermining confidence in its tenge currency.
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(News report from Issue No. 312, published on Jan. 13 2017)
DEC. 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s Central Bank cut the country’s key interest rate by 25 basis points to 6.25%, continuing to slash the cost of borrowing. Armenia’s interest rate measured 8.75% at the beginning of 2016 but was steadily cut to stimulate prices rises and economic growth.
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(News report from Issue No. 311, published on Jan. 6 2017)
DEC. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s Central Bank slowed its interest rate cuts by keeping its key rate steady at 6.5% at its latest rate fixing meeting. It said that an increase in excise taxes and external factors would help lift prices temporarily although, there- after, price pressure will return. Inflation in Georgia stands at 0.2%, far below the Central Bank’s 5% target. It has cut its key interest rate from 8% at the start of the year.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)
TBILISI, DEC. 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia Global Utilities (GGU), a subsidiary of London-listed BGEO Group, issued a 30m lari ($12m) bond, giving investors the chance to take a punt on the lari.
The bond, destined to GGU’s subsidiary Georgian Water and Power, offers a 3.5% premium over the Central Bank’s lari refinancing rate and will mature in five years.
The lari has slid by 15% in the past three months against the US dollar and is now trading at 2.66/$1. This prompted the Central Bank to stop easing its monetary policy and to keep interest rates stable at 6.5%.
Despite the fall in the value of the lari, BGEO was bullish about the issue. “This is in line with GGU’s funding strategy to continue to raise new funding in local currency, with longer-term maturity,” Irakli Gilauri, BGEO’s CEO, said in a statement.
Georgian Water and Power, which supplies water to Tbilisi, Mtskheta and Rustavi, was privatised in 2008. The sale was criticised because of a perceived lack of transparency over GGU’s British Virgin Islands registration.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)
NOV. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s Central Bank cut its key interest rate by 0.25% to 6.5%, its lowest level since at least 201. The Central Bank has been steadily cutting interest rates throughout the year to try to combat falling inflation. At the start of the year, Armenia’s interest rate had been set at 8.75%. The Central Bank said that economic activity was still slow and that it expected soft inflationary pressures to continue.
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(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)
NOV. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan cut its key interest rate by 50 basis points to 12%, its fourth cut since May, as it looked to give industry a boost. The Central Bank said more cuts were likely but that these came with a potential inflation risk. The Central Bank had raised rates to a high of 17% in February to counter inflation.
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(News report from Issue No. 305, published on Nov. 18 2016)
OCT. 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an interview with the FT, Kazakh Central Bank chief Daniyar Akishev said that inflation had slowed to under 12% and that GDP growth would measure around 0.5% this year. He also said that it was likely there would be another interest rate cut before the end of the year, another signal that the Central Bank’s confidence in the economy has strengthened after a rocky 2015.
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(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)
ALMATY, OCT. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s Central Bank cut interest rates by 50 basis points to 12.5%, its third rate cut this year, saying that slower inflation and a renewed confidence in the local currency were signs of economic recovery.
Most analysts were taken by surprise by the Central Bank’s decision, although Daniyar Akishev, the Bank’s chief, had hinted at possible rate reductions in recent weeks.
And the Central Bank said that another rate cut was likely at the next policy meeting in November .
“If the slowdown in inflation continues and stable growth in tenge deposits is confirmed, a reduction in the base rate before year-end isn’t excluded,” the Bank said its statement on the rate cut.
Inflation, which had reached 17% in annualised terms, has slowed to 5.6% in the first nine months of 2016, prompting the rate cut.
In the past nine months, the tenge/US dollar exchange rate improved by 14%, contributing to increased stability.
The tenge had lost half of its value overnight in August 2015, when the Central Bank ditched the peg to the US dollar. Months of uncertainty followed, sending the tenge further down and prompting successive rate increases.
Since the appointment of Mr Akishev in November last year and the stabilisation in oil prices at around $50, up from $27 at the start of the year, confidence in the country’s economy has slowly strengthened and recovered.
Oil is the cornerstone of Kazakhstan’s economy. The collapse in oil prices from around $110 per barrel in 2014 to $40 had undermined its prospects.
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(News report from Issue No. 299, published on Oct. 7 2016)