AUG. 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s Alliance Bank agreed a debt restructuring deal with creditors ahead of a merger with Temirbank and ForteBank, owned by Kazakh billionaire Bulat Utemuratov. It’s an important deal for the government, which owns 51% of Alliance Bank and has been looking to sell it.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 194, published on Aug. 6 2014)
JULY 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh officials travelled to Bishkek to patch up their differences before Kyrgyzstan’s expected entry into the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia in 2015.
The meeting, attended by Kazakh deputy PM Bakitzhan Sagyntayev and Kyrgyz PM Djoomart Otorbayev ended positively with Kazakhstan pledging up to $200m in grants for Kyrgyzstan’s entry into the Union and discussing a possible electricity-for-water swap this winter.
But relations between the two sides have been unusually thorny in recent months.
Since April 14, Kazakh Customs Officials have been holding up wagons carrying petrol from the Russian energy giant Rosneft to Kyrgyzstan. Kazakh officials say they are simply complying with a government ruling banning all petrol exports from Kazakhstan. Kyrgyz officials have said that they are being obtuse.
Kazakh and Russian firms are expected to further dominate Kyrgyzstan’s domestic economy when Bishkek becomes a member of the Customs Union, which is morphing into the Eurasia Economic Union, either at the end of this year or the start of next year.
The Customs Union/Eurasian Economic Union will harmonise trade customs procedures and increase tariffs against non-members such as China. This all increases Kyrgyzstan’s reliance on Kazakhstan, making this week’s meeting even more important.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kairat Kelimbetov, the Kazakh Central Bank chief, announced new measures to strengthen Kazakhstan’s banking sector. He said that from 2016, banks will have to hold capital of $30b and from 2017 $50b. Kazakhstan has been trying to protect its finance sector from future economic shocks and weed out the smaller banks.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Italian cyclist Vincenzo Nibali won the Tour de France, cycling’s greatest prize, for the Kazakhstan- sponsored Team Astana. By winning the Tour de France, Mr Nibali has guaranteed Kazakhstan major publicity. Kazakhstan has now said it wants to host the start of the Tour de France before 2020.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – So, is this the price of membership of the Russia-led Customs Union? Kazakhstan’s Bek Air has agreed to buy seven Sukhoi Superjet 100-95s for an undisclosed amount.
The Sukhoi Superjet 100-95s were unveiled to much fanfare in 2008 but sales have been sluggish and the reviews less than flattering.
In 2012, Armenian airline Armavia returned its Sukhoi Superjet after a year of flying it between Yerevan and Kiev because it was deemed to be sub-standard.
A few months earlier, in May 2012, a Superjet 100 had crashed into mountains in Indonesia during a demonstration flight killing all 45 people on board. Pilot error was declared the cause of the accident.
The Sukhoi Superjet-100 is the first passenger plane to be manufactured by Russia since the end of the Soviet Union. It is designed for medium and short-haul flights and has a capacity of between 86 and 108 passengers, depending on how the seating is arranged, and retails for around $35m per plane.
Bek Air is an almost perfect client for Sukhoi, which is a majority Russian state-owned company. Bek Air flies internal routes across Kazakhstan between Almaty, Astana, Uralsk and Atyrau.
Importantly Bek Air is also Kazakh. Kazakhstan is a junior member of the Customs Union, soon to morph into the Eurasian Economic Union, and will be under pressure to buy kit from Russia.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 22 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in the southern Kazakh city of Zhezkazgan sentenced four people to between six and 12 years in prison for trying to recruit young men to fight for Islamic extremists in Syria and Iraq. Central Asian states are increasingly nervous about extremist recruitment drives.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 23 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – French president Francois Hollande will visit Kazakhstan in the second half of 2014, the Kazakh government said. France has major investments in Kazakhstan and cooperation is growing between the two countries. There is also talk of setting up direct flights to Astana from Paris.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – As announced last month, Kazakhstan dropped visa requirements from 10 countries for people staying less than 15 days. The move is a trial but could be expanded if successful. The countries are the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, the UAE, Malaysia, the Netherlands, S.Korea, and Japan.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 193, published on July 30 2014)
JULY 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan finalised a deal with Canada’s Bombardier aircraft maker to buy 10 Q400 passenger aircraft for $230m for its new domestic airline.
The Q400 is a 70 person twin-propeller airplane, designed for short range flights.
The size of the deal underlines Kazakhstan’s spending power and also its drive to build an airline specifically to service its domestic air routes.
Domestic transport is one sector that the Kazakh government has ploughed cash into over the past few years, specifically upgrading its rail and flight network.
“Each aircraft cost $23m. In March and April 2015 five or six aircraft will be delivered to Kazakhstan. From then on, they will start to operate domestic flights,” media quoted Nurjan Shakirov, head of the newly incorporated Air Kazakhstan, as saying.
This is, of course, good news for Kazakh air travels as well as for business and industry. It’s unclear, though, what impact this new airline will have on Air Astana, the country’s current flag carrier. Officials have said that Air Astana will concentrate on international flights and major regional routes, such as Almaty to Astana, while Air
Kazakhstan will connect less frequent domestic routes.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)
JULY 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan, or Almaty to be precise, has made it into the final round of three to host the 2022 Winter Olympics.
This in itself is an achievement. The other two finalists have long Olympic pedigree. Beijing hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 2008 and Oslo has already hosted the Winter Games in 1952. In 1994, Lillehammer, in central Norway, also hosted the Winter Olympic Games.
In the last Winter Olympic Games in Sochi earlier this year Norway won 11 gold medals and China won three. Kazakhstan, by comparison, won just one bronze medal in ice skating.
Almaty may be a rank outsider in terms of Olympic pedigree but it is still an attractive option for the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The IOC wants to break into new territories for its Winter Games. The options are slightly limited by the weather and the expensive, exclusive nature of winter sports.
Almaty ticks a good number of boxes. It is keen, can pay for the facilities and has plenty of snow.
Of course there are pitfalls too. Kazakhstan’s human rights record and commitment to democracy is patchy and many of the facilities needed to host the Winter Olympics are unbuilt. Also, with the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, the IOC may decide that having another one so soon in the former Soviet Union is just too much for everybody.
The IOC decides on its 2022 winter venue on July 31 2015. Almaty has just over a year to put together a bid that could finally bring the Olympics to Kazakhstan.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 192, published on July 9 2014)