JAN. 24 (The Conway Bulletin) — KAZ Minerals, the Kazakhstan-focused London-listed copper producer, announced results that showed production that was 294 kilotons of copper, 17% higher in 2018 than in 2017, pushing up its share price. The production figure was at the top end of guidance previously given by the company.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 28/30 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan’s Central Banks kept their interest rates steady because of low inflation. Falling prices have been a feature of the economies of the region since they recovered from an economic downturn in 2014-17. Kazakhstan’s interest rate is currently 9.25% and Uzbekistan’s lies at 16%.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 29 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan wants to focus its foreign policy more closely on generating business opportunities, a departure from its previously stated aim of promoting world peace. The new strategy was unveiled by deputy foreign minister Roman Vassilenko, who said that the country’s foreign policy was going to be galvanized around generating more trade opportunities, and investment and development minister Zhenis Kassymbek, who said Kazakhstan wanted to open up 10 more trade missions in Russia, Central Asia and China this year (Jan. 22/29).
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 24 (The Conway Bulletin) — A pro-president Kazakh parliamentary party tabled a motion to rename Kazakhstan as the Kazakh Republic, as the country had been known in the first few months after the break up of the Soviet Union in December 1991. Proposals made by pro-president parties are often, but not always, approved by the Presidential Administration on behalf of Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev before they are aired.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 28 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan extradited Kazakh Artur Trofimov, a former executive at BTA Bank, to Kazakhstan for suspected money laundering and embezzlement. BTA Bank was a bank that the Kazakh government had to buy in 2008/9 to rescue it from bankruptcy. Its former chairman, Mukhtar Ablyazov, is currently in Paris after appealing against an extradition order. A French judge agreed with his argument that he was at risk of torture if he was returned to Kazakhstan. Since fleeing Kazakhstan in 2009, Ablyazov has turned himself into the leading critic of Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
ALMATY/Jan. 29 (The Conway Bulletin) — — The Kazakh government will bail out Tsesnabank, the country’s second-largest bank, for the second time in six months, once again highlighting the fragility of Kazakhstan’s financial system.
The $1.6b bailout prompted an outburst from President Nursultan Nazarbayev that finance officials and the Central Bank were “cowards” and were not doing enough to protect the system from conflicts of interests and poor bank owners.
“You are just cowards, not cabinet ministers!” Reuters quoted Mr Nazarbayev telling cabinet ministers and Central Bank officials at a meeting. “Are your hands and knees shaking too much to make a decision? What are you doing here then?”
Mr Nazarbayev is particularly sensitive about the strength of Kazakhstan’s banks. He ordered the Central Bank to tighten up its regulations of the banks after the 2008/9 Global Financial Crisis, when the Kazakh government had to buy a handful of bankrupt banks, but an economic downturn in 2014/17 showed up the sector’s continued weakness.
Some banks did prove resilient in the downturn, but the government was still forced to bail out some the more heavily-indebted larger banks and also allow a handful of smaller banks to go bankrupt.
This has hit the government’s resources, dented its wider image for financial competence and worried ordinary people who have drawn down their bank deposits.
Tsesnabank, which is owned by Adilbek Zhaksybekov, received a $1.2b bailout in September. Mr Zhaksybekov is a close confidant of Mr Nazarbayev and his former Chief-of-Staff.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 23 (The Conway Bulletin) — Foreign ambassadors and senior government officials in Kazakhstan opened the largest solar power plant in the region at Saran in the centre of the country. The $137m project was funded by the EBRD and has the capacity to generate 100MW of power. At the opening, Kazakh Energy Minister Kanat Bozumbayev, said that the government wants to generate 3% of its power through renewable energy by 2020, 20% by 2030 and 50% by 2050.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 23 (The Conway Bulletin) — Qatar Airways said it had started flying cargo planes to Almaty, boosting the ambitions of Kazakhstan’s financial centre of becoming a major transit hub. Almaty will receive a Qatar cargo plane twice a week. First from Doha and then returning from Hong Kong back to Doha. Central Asian cities are looking to become trade hubs between Europe and East Asia.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 29 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan-focused oil producer Nostrum Oil & Gas said that it expected lower revenues in 2018 because of a 4% decline in production. The announcement by the AIM-listed producer follows 2018 results that already showed a sharp fall in production to 31,254 barrels of oil equivalent, down from 39,199 barrels in 2017.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 23 (The Conway Bulletin) — Looking to give the Kazakh language a boost, Kazakhstan said that it was planning on translating 30 of the world’s bestselling books this year. Kazakh is becoming the predominant language in Kazakhstan and is spoken by more people than Russian. Russian, though, retains its position as the language of business and government.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019