Tag Archives: Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan spat

OCT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Turkmen foreign ministry complained to Kazakhstan about a statement made by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Astana last week when he alleged that there was fighting on the Turkmen-Afghan border. Media in Afghanistan reported fighting between the Taliban and government forces. Turkmenistan has refuted claims the fighting threatens its borders.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Criticism of Kazakhstan’s draft NGO law builds up

OCT. 21 2015, ASTANA (The Conway Bulletin) — International human rights groups criticised Kazakhstan’s draft bill on NGOs as an attempt to seriously restrict civil society’s activities.

The new bill would hand the government control of foreign grants and also restrict the operational sphere of NGOs.

Dunja Mijatovic, OSCE representative on freedom of the media, said: “Introducing legislation that would put NGOs under strict governmental supervision, including the control of foreign grants, is worrying for civil society actors in general”.

The OSCE is Europe’s intergovernmental democracy watchdog.

The government has said that it needs clearer oversight over how NGOs operate in the country. Its detractors, though, have said it is far too similar to a bill introduced by Russia a few years ago.

Gulmira Birzhanova, a lawyer and expert in national and international media law, who works in the Legal Media Center NGO in Astana, said the bill contradicted basic constitutional rights.

“The proposed legislation violates freedom of assembly as stated in our Constitution,” Ms Birzhanova told the Bulletin in an interview.

Under the new law, the ministry of culture and sports will be in charge of assigning funds, which Ms Birzhanova said would hand it the ultimate control over NGOs’ operations.

“The ministry will act as a central operator that will distribute finances and grants to NGOs no matter if they receive it from the governmental budget or from international sources,” she said. “This creates a thorny situation because NGOs are often engaged in disputes against the government.”

Analysts have said that despite the criticism of the bill, the Kazakh parliament may be looking to turn it into law by the end of the year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

KazTransOil liquidates Georgian subsidiary

OCT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — After a lengthy legal spat, Kazakhstan’s oil pipeline company KazTransOil (KTO) liquidated Batumi Terminals Ltd, its subsidiary in Georgia. Earlier in March, a Georgian court seized Batumi Terminals’ assets on charges that it had abused its monopolistic position. The charges were eventually dropped.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Markets: Trade turnover among Eurasian Economic Union members falls

OCT. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Eurasian Economic Commission published the latest statistics on trade turnover among EEU countries. It made for interesting, if also distressing, reading.

Trade among Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan was down by a quarter in Jan.-Aug. 2015, compared to the same period last year.

By volume, Russia was the country that suffered the largest fall, amounting to over $4b. In terms of percentage, however, all other countries except for Kyrgyzstan fared worse — Kyrgyzstan acceded as a full member only in August, so its numbers could be misleading.

Curiously, Armenia increased trade turnover with non-EEU countries such as Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan by over 40%.

In the two periods analysed by the Commission, oil prices were significantly different. And this can be clearly seen in Kazakhstan’s statistics, which show a sharp fall in exports to Italy, China and Russia, its main trade partners by volume. In particular, the value of Kazakhstan’s exports were reduced by the double whammy of lower oil prices and the decrease in the value of the tenge after the government abandoned its peg to the US dollar.

It is undeniable that the rouble crisis and the fall in oil prices have affected the Eurasian region. And the EEU has been unabel to contain the spill-over effects on its members.

OCT. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) —

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(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Kazakh President begins foreign tour

OCT. 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s president Nursultan Nazarbayev will visit Qatar, Britain and France over the next two weeks, according to his official website akorda.kz. Qatar is one of Kazakhstan’s main partners in financial and infrastructure cooperation. Mr Nazarbayev has cultivated close ties with Britain and France.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Transaero cuts flights to Kazakhstan

OCT. 19 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian airline company Transaero cancelled all flights from Moscow to destinations in Kazakhstan and Armenia after it declared bankruptcy. Russia’s Aeroflot will take over these flights. Transaero filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 1.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Iran, China and Kazakhstan to build refinery

OCT. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Iran and China are ready to help build Kazakhstan’s fourth oil refinery, Raymbek Amirzhanov, vice governor of the Mangistau region in north- western Kazakhstan, told media. Kazakhstan has repeatedly said it needs a fourth refinery to end its dependence on Russian petroleum products. Iran and China have said they will buy more oil from Kazakhstan through a swap system.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Court shuts newspaper in Kazakhstan

OCT. 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Almaty shut the Adam newspaper, saying that, by publishing in Russian only, it violated the law on languages. Human rights groups said this was a pretext to curb independent media in Kazakhstan. A paper linked to the opposition, Adam was created in March 2015 after its predecessor Adam Bol was shut down in December 2014.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

Stock market: Nostrum, Tethys, KAZ Minerals

OCT. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Oil companies suffered from a fall in oil prices this week. The Brent index closed at $48/barrel on Friday, down 5% this week.

Nostrum Oil & Gas lost around 9% this week, recovering on Friday to end at 475p per share in London. Nostrum’s summer objective Tethys Petroleum continued its slump, reaching the lowest level in 2015 on Oct. 22, trading at 0.06 Canadian dollars per share in Toronto on Thursday, rebounding slightly to 0.07 Canadian dollars on Friday. Kazakhstan-focused Roxi Petroleum gained 2%, after it issued new shares earlier in October. Roxi closed at 9.63p on Friday.

Last week, the price of copper fell by 2% before recovering to $2.40 per lb. Britain-based miner KAZ Minerals was hit by the market crunch this week and recorded a 7% loss, closing at 127p in London on Friday.

The upside was represented by Centerra Gold, whose shares gained almost 9% despite slower gold production in Kyrgyzstan. The final price in Toronto was 8.28 Canadian dollars.

In the banking sector, Bank of Georgia rose by almost 7% this week to 214p. The stability of the lari currency kept the market optimistic.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)

EX-Armenian PM Sargsyan heads Eurasian Union Commission

OCT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Former Armenian PM Tigran Sargsyan will take over as chairman of the Eurasian Economic Commission on Feb. 1, an appointment that highlights Russian President Vladimir Putin’s influence over the group.

The Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) announced Mr Sargsyan’s appointment after a meeting in Astana. Mr Sargsyan succeeds Russian Viktor Khristenko.

According to media, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said of Mr Sargsyan’s appointment: “His candidacy is supported by the Russian President as they worked together some time ago.”

The Eurasian Economic Commission runs the EEU — which also includes Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan as its members — on a day-to-day basis, and Mr Sargsyan’s appointment should, at first sight, give Armenia more influence over the trade bloc.

The reality is different, though. The EEU is a Russian project and Mr Lukashenko’s words show just how influential Mr Putin is over the group. Without his support, Mr Sargsyan could not have been appointed as chairman.

Since April 2014, Mr Sargsyan has been the Armenian ambassador to the United States. He had been PM between 2008-14 but quit abruptly after his government’s reforms to the state pension programme proved unpopular.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 253, published on Oct. 23 2015)