APRIL 29 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will not buy ConocoPhillips’ 8.4% stake in the Caspian Sea Kashagan oil project, local media quoted Kazmunaigas’ chairman, Lyazzat Kiinov, as saying. Although ConocoPhillips had agreed a deal with India’s national energy company, ONGC, to buy the stake for $5b, Kazakhstan has the right to buy the stake first.
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(News report from Issue No. 134, published on May 6 2013)
MAY 3 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazmunaigas, the Kazakh state energy company, plans to invest $10b over the next 10 years in exploration to double its oil and gas reverses, chairman Lyazzat Kiinov said. The ambitious plans show how important the energy sector is to Kazakhstan’s economic development.
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(News report from Issue No. 134, published on May 6 2013)
MAY 3 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Kazakh investment fund has agreed to sponsor the Britain-based Williams Formula 1 racing team, media reported. The deal, worth an undisclosed amount and hatched between Williams and the investment company TAK Group, will give more publicity to the Kazakh capital Astana.
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(News report from Issue No. 134, published on May 6 2013)
MAY 3 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazmunaigas, Kazakhstan’s national energy company, sold Eurobonds worth $3b in April, media reported quoting its press service. The relatively low interest on the debt — $2b 30-year Eurobonds sold with an interest of 5.8% and $1b 10-year Eurobonds with 4.45% — shows the attractiveness of lending to Kazmunaigas.
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(News report from Issue No. 134, published on May 6 2013)
MAY 1 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – Police in Boston arrested two 19-year-old students from Kazakhstan and charged them with conspiring to obstruct justice by tampering with a computer and a backpack containing fireworks that had belonged to one of the alleged marathon bombers.
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(News report from Issue No. 134, published on May 6 2013)
MAY 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) – After months of veiled negotiations, Italy’s UniCredit bank sold ATF Bank, its Kazakh subsidiary, for $500m. The buyer is the relatively unknown Galimzhan Yesenov, son-in-law of the mayor of Almaty.
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(News report from Issue No. 134, published on May 6 2013)
APRIL 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Bulat Utemuratov, one of Kazakhstan’s richest men and an associate of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev is apparently weighing up buying into Italian soccer club Inter Milan, Italy’s media reported. Some of the richest men in the former Soviet states have invested in European soccer clubs over the past decade.
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(News report from Issue No. 133, published on April 29 2013)
APRIL 26 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — British fraud investigators opened an investigation into Kazakh miner ENRC after several senior executives resigned following allegations of corruption, media reported. ENRC is listed on the London stock exchange but its three main Kazakh shareholders have said they are looking into taking the business private.
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(News report from Issue No. 133, published on April 29 2013)
APRIL 28 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh industry minister Asset Issekeshev said on a visit to Dubai that the Dubai-based port operator DP World has pledged to invest $1b into Aktau port and the Khorog-Eastern Gates free zone area, media reported. Aktau is Kazakhstan’s main Caspian Sea port. The Khorog-Eastern Gates free zone lies on the border with China.
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(News report from Issue No. 133, published on April 29 2013)
APRIL 26 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Being pelted with eggs at a press conference was just the latest public humiliation for Serik Abdenov, Kazakhstan’s fresh-faced labour minister.
Mr Abdenov is in charge of explaining why the government intends to raise the retirement age for women to 63 from 58. This is in line with the age that men in Kazakhstan retire and is an entirely plausible concept.
The problem is that Mr Abdenov appears ill-equipped to explain this to a sceptical public.
Earlier this month, at a meeting in Temirtau, an industrial town in central Kazakhstan, Mr Abdenov took to the stage to explain why the reform was necessary. He faced an audience of unimpressed women factory workers.
Sitting at a desk adorned with a portrait of Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, Mr Adbenov offered this enlightened thinking on why women needed to work longer.
“You have to work, to work,” he said triggering howls of laughter from the audience.
Mr Abdenov tried again. “Because, my dear countrymen, because, because,” he said, before tailing off into an unconvincing description of what it means to be a pensioner.
Less than a week later, Andrei Tsukanov, a protester, hurled two eggs at Mr Abdenov during a press conference to discuss the pension reforms.
One egg hit Mr Abdenov, one missed. Again, though, it was all caught on video, heaping further public humiliation on the apparently hapless minister for labour.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 133, published on April 29 2013)