APRIL 18 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Perhaps Kazakhstan’s most important company, state oil and gas monopoly Kazmunaigas said net profits doubled in 2010 to about $2.7b, Reuters reported. Kazmunaigas did not give a reason for the profit rise.
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(News report from Issue No. 36, published on April 18 2011)
APRIL 12 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s government named President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s son-in-law Timur Kulibayev as head of the country’s $80b sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna. Mr Kulibayev had previously been deputy head. The move secures Mr Nazarbayev’s hold over the most important elements of the economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 36, published on April 18 2011)
APRIL 11 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan aims to join a customs union with Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus on Jan. 1 2012, Russian news agency RIA Novosti quoted Kyrgyz PM, Almazbek Atambayev as saying. The Kremlin has forged closer relations with the Kyrgyzstan since a revolution last April. Moving into the customs union will pull Kyrgyzstan towards Russia’s influence.
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(News report from Issue No. 35, published on April 11 2011)
APRIL 11 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakh PM Karim Massimov moved the head of the state’s investment fund Samruk-Kazyna, Kairat Kelimbetov to be minister for economic development. President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s son-in-law, Timur Kulibayev is currently deputy head of the Samruk-Kazyna, which controls vast swathes of the country’s economy. He could be promoted.
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(News report from Issue No. 35, published on April 11 2011)
APRIL 3 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – As expected, President Nursultan Nazarbayev won Kazakhstan’s presidential election. The Central Election Committee said Mr Nazarbayev won 95% of the vote with a turnout of 90%. International observers said they had recorded incidences of ballot stuffing and intimidation.
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(News report from Issue No. 34, published on April 4 2011)
APRIL 4 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Nursultan Nazarbayev got what he wanted from Kazakhstan’s presidential election on April 3.
The Central Election Committee said he won with 95% of the vote. So, while rulers in the Middle East contend with popular uprisings, Nazarbayev has won a huge mandate to extend his 20 year rule by another five years.
But although support for Nazarbayev is high, the detail shows his victory may not have been as comprehensive as the headline figures suggest.
The main opposition boycotted the vote and said Nazarbayev’s three challengers were put up by the authorities to give the election a veneer of competition and despite an official turnout of 90%, a Conway Bulletin correspondent in Almaty found plenty of people who had not voted.
People also said they had been coerced into voting. In Shymkent, a city in southern Kazakhstan, a construction worker called Nazir said: “They told us that if we didn’t vote we would not be paid. So, we voted.”
International election monitors also said they had recorded incidences of ballot stuffing and intimidation. But in an opinion piece in the Washington Post on March 31, Nazarbayev wrote described Kazakhstan’s economic achievements and appeared to pre-empt criticism of the vote.
“It took the great democracies of the world centuries to develop,” he said. “We are not going to become a fully developed democracy overnight. But we have proved that we can deliver on our big ambitions.”
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(News report from Issue No. 34, published on April 4 2011)
MARCH 23/29 2 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s London-listed mining companies, ENRC and Kazakhmys, recorded large jumps in profit in 2010 because of high global metal prices. ENRC’s underlying profit doubled and Kazakhmys’ rose 75%. Both companies are closely linked to the Kazakh elite, including President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
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(News report from Issue No. 34, published on April 4 2011)
MARCH 24 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – The build up to Kazakhstan’s April 3 vote has been unfair, said Europe’s election monitoring watchdog, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). It said the media is restricted and murky laws prevented potential candidates from running. President Nursultan Nazarbayev is expected to easily win the election.
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(News report from Issue No. 33, published on March 28 2011)
MARCH 24 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – A joint venture between Kazakh private equity group Visor and the Turkish unit of Italy’s Relight, are planning to invest $1b in two wind farms in southern Kazakhstan. Energy generated by the wind farms would free south Kazakhstan from relying on electricity imports from Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 33, published on March 28 2011)
MARCH 15 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Already Central Asia’s biggest energy producer, Kazakhstan’s oil and gas ministry published plans in the official newspaper to boost natural gas production by 12%. According to the plan Kazakhstan will produce 42b cubic metres of gas in 2011 compared to 37.4b last year pushing it into the world’s top 20 gas producers.
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(News report from Issue No. 32, published on March 21 2011)