FEB. 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The ecology department in the Mangistau regional government issued Ozenmunaigas, a subsidiary of Kazakh state-owned energy company Kazmunaigas, a fine of $1.8b for environmental damage. Ozenmunaigas refuted the claim. Environmental fines are sometimes used to pressure companies.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
MARCH 4 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Once considered a key kingmaker, Aslan Musin appears to have completed his fall from power after he was appointed Kazakhstan’s ambassador in Croatia, a fringe outpost in the Kazakh diplomatic service. Mr Musin had been head of the presidential administration for four years until being demoted in 2012.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
FEB. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh state-owned pipeline monopoly KazTransGaz agreed to take a $700m loan from the China Development Bank to build a second 311km gas pipeline from southern Kazakhstan to China. The loan highlights the dominance of Chinese finance and its hunger for gas in Central Asia.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
FEB. 28 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan hopes that its long-delayed Caspian Sea oil field Kashagan will finally start producing oil in the second half of the year. Kazakh PM Serik Akhmetov said he hoped Kashagan, which cost $50b to build, would produce 3m tonnes of oil this year. A gas leak halted production last year.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
FEB. 26 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — British bank HSBC agreed to sell its banking assets in Kazakhstan to Halyk Bank for $176m.
HSBC Kazakhstan employed about 600 people and operated six branches in the country.
The deal is important for two reasons. Although left unsaid, HSBC’s move out of Kazakhstan feels like a fairly damming verdict on the Kazakh economy. After all, HSBC spent 15 year working in Kazakhstan.
Perhaps Kazakhstan is not as rosy economically as government ministers would like the public to think.
Secondly, Halyk Bank, the purchaser of HSBC’s banking assets, is owned by the Dinara Nazarbayeva and Timur Kulibayev, the daughter and son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
HSBC has generally had a re-think across the globe on its banking strategy. It pulled out of Russia in 2011 after only two years.
For Halyk Bank, the deal is something of a coup. Halyk Bank refused to buy the government’s stake in debt-ridden BTA Bank at the end of 2013, showing its independent thinking.
For Kazakhstan’s banking sector, the deal marks another round in the consolidation process. It also leaves Citi as the only Western bank with a major presence. All eyes are now on Citi and how long it lasts.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
MARCH 1 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Anti-government rallies in Kazakhstan are rare, making a planned demonstration in central Almaty an ideal opportunity to gauge the public’s appetite for protest.
If you blinked, you would have missed it. It felt like that, anyway.
Around two dozen protesters, out-numbered by plainclothed police, gathered under a statue of Abai, Kazakhstan’s national poet, in a square in central Almaty.
Passers-by hurried on with barely a glance at the gathering. The normally ever-present uniformed police hadn’t bothered to monitor the protest.
There was, frankly, a lack of momentum.
One of the protesters shuffled his feet and said that people were afraid to turning up because of the fear of being arrested.
Certainly the authorities in Kazakhstan don’t tolerate dissent, they arrested several bloggers last month after they protested, but, even so, this was a poor turnout.
Yerlan Kaliyev, an opposition activist acting as a figurehead, tried to inject substance into the rally by referencing Abai, the poet.
He said: “His call to be wary of rich people is more than one hundred years old but could be directly applied to the current situation in our country.”
The protesters agreed with Mr Kaliyev.
They mixed political slogans with poetry recitals for about an hour. Then they all went home.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
FEB. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government said it would buy 10 planes from Canada’s Bombardier to set up a domestic airline called Air Kazakhstan. Air Kazakhstan was the name of the Kazakh national airline in the 1990s. It was phased out with the creation of Air Astana in 2001. Kazakhstan has been investing heavily in transport infrastructure.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 174, published on March 5 2014)
FEB. 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan may experience fuel shortages this year, media quoted Sauat Mynbayev, head of Kazmunaigas, as saying. Kazakhstan’s three oil refineries are being upgrading, reducing their capacity and forcing the authorities to import fuel from Russia. The currency devaluation has made fuel imports expensive.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)
FEB. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s delegation at the Sochi Winter Olympic Games in Russia took the chance to plug Almaty for the 2022 event. The Kazakh delegation pledged that they would not spend hugely on new facilities as Sochi had. Almaty is competing against Lviv in Ukraine, Oslo, Beijing and Krakow in Poland.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)
FEB. 20 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — If the Kazakh Central Bank’s decision to devalue the Kazakh tenge by 20% on Feb. 11 came as a nasty surprise, the admission by Kairat Kelimbetov, the Bank’s chief, that he had only learned of the policy shift the night before came as a frightening shock.
Readers left floods of angry comments on news websites on the apparent ineptitude of Mr Kelimbetov.
“If he didn’t know, it means he doesn’t work at all! What an irresponsible (man),” wrote one user.
The Kazakh Central Bank is supposedly in charge of the country’s monetary policy and the constitution enshrines its independence.
And yet here was the Mr Kelimbetov saying that he’d only been informed about a policy change at the last moment. Many suspect that Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, in power since 1991, influences monetary policy.
Even so, it was a PR disaster for Mr Kelimbetov, said Eldar Madumarov, an economics professor in Almaty.
“It used to be regarded as the most independent and reliable Central Bank among all post-Soviet countries, including Russia,” he said. “All he’s been saying undermines his credibility.”
The Kazakh President, with approval from the Senate, appoints the Central Bank chief. Mr Kelimbetov took over as head of the Kazakh Central Bank in October last year from Grigory Marchenko, who was considered a steady hand.
Mr Kelimbetov’s reputation appears to be in tatters as Svetlana Dzhalmagambetova, a senator, voiced when she faced him at a Senate hearing on the devaluation.
“We need to know if you lack professionalism or ethics, it’s one of the two,” she said according to reports. “You misled not only the people of Kazakhstan, but also their representatives here in the Parliament.”
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 173, published on Feb. 26 2014)