JUNE 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan is paying former senior German politicians large salaries to whitewash its reputation in Europe, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported quoting emails it has seen from an Austria-based law firm. The magazine named former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, former president Horst Koehler and former interior minister Otto Schily.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in west Kazakhstan handed the Karachaganak oil and gas project a fine of 7.3b tenge (roughly $40m) for excessive flaring, media reported quoting a court statement. Karachaganak’s shareholders are BG Group, Eni, Chevron, Lukoil and Kazmunaigas.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh carmakers doubled domestic production in May compared to April, according to the Association of the Kazakh Automobile Business, but overall sales are still lower this year.
Car production and demand are a decent weathermast for checking the health of economies. Kazakhstan, like the rest of the region, has been struggling to cope with the fallout from a decline in economic conditions, linked mainly to a fall in global oil prices.
This drop in car sales and production numbers.
Overall, car sales have slumped by around a third in Kazakhstan in the first quarter of the year compared to 2014 but there was a definite uptick in domestic production last month. Domestic manufacturers produced 2,611 new cars in May up from t 1,248 cars in April.
The car market is still suffering from slow sales in the first quarter of 2015, down 32% from the last quarter of 2014.
Car manufacturing has become increasingly important to Kazakhstan’s economy, employing hundreds of people. Most of the industry is based around Kostanai in the north of the country and Oskemen, or Ust-Kamenogorsk as it was called until recently, in the east.
In Kazakhstan, car sales hit 160,000 in 2013, up nearly 70% from 2012. There was a slight drop in 2014 and 2015 is shaping up to be an even bigger drop. This will likely be the first time that car sales have declined for two years in a row in Kazakhstan since 2008 and 2009, during the global economic crisis.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kaztelecom, Kazakhstan’s stateowned fixed line telecoms company, plans to launch an IPO in London, its CEO Kuanyshbek Yessekeyev, said in an interview to the KazTag news agency. If the IPO does progress, and Mr Yessekeyev didn’t give a timeframe, it will attract much interest.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Kazakhstan arrested on corruption charges Talgat Yermegiyayev, two days after he had quit as the chairman of the company organising President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s EXPO-217 extravaganza.
The arrest will be a major embarrassment to Mr Nazarbayev who has pledged to crackdown on corruption in Kazakhstan.
Adilbek Dzhaksybekov, the mayor of Astana, was quickly given the job of heading EXPO- 2017.
For Mr Yermegiyayev, a powerful businessmen with links to the top of the Kazakh elite, his arrest marks a very heavy fall from grace.
Alongside him, police also arrested Kazhymurat Usenov on embezzlement charges. Mr Usenov was in charge of much of the construction work for EXPO-2017 in Astana.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – India will reject a 25% stake in the Abai oil field in the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea, Indian sources told the Economic Times newspaper. Kazakhstan had offered India the stake in the untapped field after it chose China over India as a shareholder in the Kashagan oil field in 2013.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Maina Kiai, a United Nations Special Rapporteur, said the freedom to assemble and freedom of expression were compromised in Kazakhstan. Mr Kiai was reporting on a trip he made to Kazakhstan in January.
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(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said lending to projects in Kazakhstan would hit a record $1b this year as the country diversifies away from oil, gas and other extractive minerals.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia’s Lukoil will knock 10% off the price of assets in Kazakhstan it plans to sell to China’s Sinopec to ease the deal through, media reported quoting industry sources. The discount shows how oil and gas assets in Kazakhstan have lost value since oil prices fell sharply.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
JUNE 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kashagan, Kazakhstan’s trouble- some Caspian Sea oil field, will start pumping oil by mid-2016 and hit an output of 370,000 barrels per day by the end of 2017, media reported quoting an interview with Stephane de Mahieu, managing- director of the consortium developing the field.
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(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)