APRIL 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh courts badly need to root out corruption, Kazakhstan’s Secretary of State Adilbek Dzhaksybekov said. His comments are a rare admission from a Kazakh government official that more needs to be done to reform corruption institutions.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 11 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh businesses and consumers need to learn to re-pay loans, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev said in a rare foray into personal finance. Mr Nazarbayev’s frustration is understandable. Kazakhstan has one of the highest proportions of bad loans in the world, hindering its economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — It was overcrowded and barely organised but a meeting in Almaty that opposed Kazakhstan’s move towards a Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union was important.
Around 250 people, with an uneasy mix of different agendas from ultra-nationalists to human rights protesters, attended the meeting in a scruffy hotel.
The main complaints were a lack of transparency in the move and that Kazakhstan may lose its identity.
Speaking at the meeting, political commentator Dastan Kadyrzhanov said: “The Eurasian Economic Union is our Rubicon, a civilisational choice. If we pass it, there will be no way back.”
Opposition groups in Kazakhstan have a tough time. They have been hounded, detained, pushed off the streets. So for this meeting to pass off without protesters being detained was eye-catching.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 15 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The fallout from Ukraine’s revolution and the ensuing standoff between Russia and the West has created a headache for Kazakhstan.
If relations fray further the US and the EU may impose trade sanctions on Russia and these will impact Kazakhstan.
But the Kazakh energy sector is probably more robust than energy minister Uzakbai Karabalin made out last week.
Kazakhstan relies heavily on Russia as a transit country for its oil and it may have to find alternative export routes, but those routes do exist. This might include sending oil south, through Iran to the Persian Gulf.
Around a third of Kazakhstan’s oil exports flow through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) which owns the pipeline running from Atyrau in western Kazakhstan to Novorossiysk on Russia’s black Sea coast.
At first glance it looks as if any sanctions on Russia would hit CPC — the pipeline crosses Russia and feeds into a Russian mix of oil. But the CPC has international status and should, in theory, be exempt from sanctions.
Kazakhstan now also exports much of its oil to China, across the Caspian Sea and through the South Caucasus. Mr Karabalin’s concerns about the impact on Kazakhstan’s domestic oil-products market from a sanctions hit Russia also feels slightly overblown.
Kazakhstan has a shortage of refinery capacity and has to import oil products from China and Russia. This has been expensive and has threatened to push up prices.
If the West did impose sanctions on Russia and it did flood Kazakhstan with oil products, prices would drop.
Kazakhstan and the rest of Central Asia are exposed to Russia’s economy. If, under the weight of threatened sanctions, it stutters, so too does Central Asia. Kazakhstan’s energy sector, though, is more sheltered.
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(News report from Issue No. 180, published on April 16 2014)
APRIL 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s Kashagan oil field will be shut for another two years while faulty gas pipelines are replaced, unnamed sources close to the deal told the qz.com website. The $50b Kashagan project was supposed to have turned Kazakhstan into an energy superpower. Instead it has become a major headache for the government.
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(News report from Issue No. 179, published on April 9 2014)
APRIL 2 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A bribery investigation at Swedish- Finnish telecoms company TeliaSonera appeared to widen from Uzbekistan, its initial focus, to other companies it owns in Central Asia and the South Caucasus after it said some other business deals may have been illegal. TeliaSonera owns Kcell, Kazakhstan’s largest mobile provider.
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(News report from Issue No. 179, published on April 9 2014)
APRIL 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The spectre of Kazakh police shooting dead oil workers during a strike in 2011 haunts trade union members who are now too afraid of the security forces to launch long-term industrial action.
The issue of workers’ rights in Kazakhstan surged into the public consciousness in December 2011 after police shot dead at least 15 people in the scruffy western oil town of Zhanaozen, bringing to an end a six month strike aimed at increasing oil workers’ salaries.
In an interview with The Conway Bulletin in Almaty, Aleksei Nigai, deputy head of the small Odak union, said that although conditions for workers in general had not improved since 2011, workers avoided long stand offs with the security forces.
“Since then [Zhanaozen], there have been more and more strikes but the scale has been modest because workers fear the government’s reaction,” he said.
“Nobody wants to be shot for a salary increase.”
Mr Nigai was talking just a few days after a four-day strike hit an oil services company in western Kazakhstan.
He also said the government was planning to introduce legislation that would increase the punishment for strikes not authorised and organised by the official government-linked union.
In other words, Mr Nigai said, the Kazakh state wanted a Potemkin union system that it could easily control.
“There will be only one umbrella organisation, the Federation, which is appointed by the President,” he said with a sigh and a shrug.
“Tell me how this is different to, say, Turkmenistan.”
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(News report from Issue No. 179, published on April 9 2014)
APRIL 6 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazkommertsbank (KazKom), Kazakhstan’s biggest lender, said it made a profit of $288m last year, turning around a loss in 2012. KazKom’s ratio of non-performing loans, though, remained a stubbornly high 32.4%. Kazakhstan has made a priority of reducing its non-performing loans.
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(News report from Issue No. 179, published on April 9 2014)
APRIL 8 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — With Russia’s annexation of Crimea firmly in mind, Kazakhstan’s parliament is likely to pass laws that will criminalise separatist action, media reported. Kazakhstan’s north is home to a large Russian minority which it worries will follow the example of Crimea and try to join Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 179, published on April 9 2014)
APRIL 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — International sanctions imposed on Russia because of its de facto annexation of Crimea will adversely affect Kazakh exports, Kazakhstan’s energy minister Uzakbai Karabalin told parliament. Mr Karabalin said that Kazakhstan may look to increase oil exports via Azerbaijan, China and Iran.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 179, published on April 9 2014)