MAY 22 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan Central Bank banned Delta Bank, the 14th biggest bank in the country, from opening up any new customer accounts until mid- June because it had missed a series of payment deadlines. Kazakhstan’s banking sector has been under increased pressure because of an economic downturn linked to a drop in oil prices and a recession in Russia.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 330, published on May 28 2017)
ALMATY, MAY 24 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Construction work on a glass sheet factory in southern Kazakhstan is continuing despite it being the focus of a corruption scandal earlier this year that lead to the arrest of former Kazakh economy minister Kuandyk Bishimbayev.
Stewart Engineers, the US company involved in building the Orda Glass plant in the Kyzlorda region, said a deal had been signed with Chinese firm Triumph Group to complete construction work. Bishimbayev was arrested in January and accused of taking a $2m bribe for handing out a contract linked to the glass factory project.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 330, published on May 28 2017)
MAY 26 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s first uranium enrichment facility will become operational by 2019, an official at the Ulba Metallurgical Plant told Reuters. The project is a joint venture with China, which will take delivery of the enriched uranium for its nuclear power stations. Kazakhstan produces 40% of the world’s uranium but doesn’t yet have an enrichment facility.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 330, published on May 28 2017)
MAY 28 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Profit at Georgia’s London-listed TBC Bank rose by two-thirds to nearly 100m lari ($40m) highlighting the increasingly upbeat assessment of the Georgian banking sector.
The bumper results also pushed up TBC’s share price to an all-time high of 1,695p. This is nearly an 18% increase from the start of the year and is an increase of roughly 65% from when TBC listed in August.
The main driver of this improvement has been an overall strengthening of Georgia’s economy. The region has been hit hard by a downturn in economic conditions, linked to a collapse in oil prices and also a recession in Russia.
TBC’s main rival, the London- listed Bank of Georgia, has also been hitting similar all-time highs. As well as boosting its stock price, Bank of Georgia also gain a PR boost when it issued 500m lari debt, the first corporate issue in lari.
Elsewhere, KAZ Minerals has been performing well. It’s been yoyo-ing around and has regained much of the ground lost in March. KAZ Minerals is a major copper producer and its share price follows copper prices to a large extent.
It is now trading at 506p, up from 430p at the beginning of the month but down from highs of 589p hit in mid-February.
KAZ Minerals used to by known as Kazakmys, which was linked by transparency campaigners to Kazakh Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev.Stock market: Georgia’s TBC, Kaz minerals
MAY 23 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Under new rules brought in to crack down on potential terrorism, telecoms companies operating in Kazakhstan will have to store details of all calls and other communications for up to two years, media reported. Rights campaigners said that the new rules were designed to crackdown on civil liberties. Telecoms analysts said that the new rules would increase prices for consumers.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 330, published on May 28 2017)
ASTANA/ALMATY, MAY 28 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Gripes about the economy dominated my week in Astana and Almaty. Not gripes from officials but gripes from ordinary Kazakhs who are feeling the pinch.
Still, Astana and Almaty felt upbeat.
Astana was busy putting the final touches on EXPO-2017, an event it has been building towards for several years. It’s with brash civic pride that people living in Astana tell you that the world is going to visit their city this summer. We shall see.
Not that I could have a look around EXPO-2017 when I was there. They weren’t ready yet for visitors, including journalists, despite advertising that the media centre and accreditation desks were open for business.
If Astana was full of brash pride about the multi-billion-dollar government-funded EXPO-2017, Almaty’s pride lies in its more sanguine nature. I arrived off the overnight train from Astana. After a few days of interviews in Astana I was ready to see friends and the Bulletin’s correspondent in Almaty.
And May is a perfect time to visit Kazakhstan’s former capital. It’s warm, but not too hot, and the trees and flowers are blooming. The warmer air has also lifted the smog, giving visitors’ glimpses of Almaty’s regal snow-capped mountains.
Almaty oozes a breezy, louche confidence whereas Astana seems to crave attention and praise.
Astana grabs the headlines and improves with every visit I make. Almaty, though, has always had it and always will. And it knows this too.
By James Kilner, Editor, The Conway Bulletin
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 330, published on May 28 2017)
MAY 16 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Ratings agencies downgraded debt issued by the International Bank of Azerbaijan, as the country’s biggest bank appeared to teeter towards a collapse.
There were fears too that the bad debt piling up at the IBA may damage finance systems across Central Asia and South Caucasus after it emerged that Kazakhstan’s Single Pension Fund had bought $250m of IBA debt over the past few years.
Kazakh MPs accused the Pension Fund of incompetence for investing in IBA in October 2014 shortly after the price of oil started to fall. At the time analysts warned that IBA was at risk of accumulating mountains of bad debt that could sink it.
Moody’s said it had downgraded IBA’s rating to Caa3 from B1, effectively shifting IBA debt from risky to extremely risky.
“Moody’s expects the announced foreign debt restructuring plan to result in credit losses for creditors in excess of 20%,” it said. Media reported that Cargill and Citibank are two of IBA’s biggest creditors.
Last week, IBA filed for Chapter 15 protection in the United States after it failed to make a $100m debt repayment to Netherlands-based Rubrika Finance on May 10. Chapter 15 prevents creditors going after IBA while it restructures its $3.33b debt. The Azerbaijani government is the bank’s biggest shareholder, now holding an 80% stake, and its fall is a major embarrassment to it. Not only has it bought equity in the bank, it increased its stake from 55% earlier this year, but it has also spent nearly $6b buying up its toxic debt.
Media quoted IBA chairman, Khalid Ahadov, as saying that its restructuring plan will be presented in London on May 23.
“Upon completion of these measures, the Bank’s capital position will return to regulatory frameworks,” he was quoted as saying. “As a result of all those measures long-term financial sustainability of IBA will be ensured that will increase its market value on the threshold of privatisation.”
But the reputational damage inflicted by the near-collapse of IBA will undermine Azerbaijan’s status in the financial markets. Last year several smaller banks collapsed or had their license withdrawn by the Central Bank. In 2015, the Azerbaijani manat was devalued twice, halving its worth. With many mortgages and personal loans given out in US dol- lars, consumers found it near-impossible to service their debt.
Azerbaijan has been particularly hard hit by the fall in oil prices. Its economy is reliant on oil exports. Despite repeated warnings, it has failed to diversify.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 329, published on May 20 2017)
MAY 14 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Western media and human rights lobby groups demanded an investigation into the stabbing of a Kazakh journalist who was travelling by train from Almaty to Astana. Ramazan Yesergepov, chairman of Journalists in Danger, a media freedom group that provides legal advice, had been travelling to Almaty to talk to Western embassies about a decline in press freedom in Kazakhstan. Mr Yesergepov was stabbed in the abdomen. He was taken to hospital. His wounds were not life-threatening.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 329, published on May 20 2017)
MAY 11-14 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A slew of Central Asian officials flew to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping for bilateral talks and also regional development. Visitors included Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, on his first visit to China since becoming Uzbek leader in September last year. China has become an important driver of economic development in the region with its ‘One Belt, One Road’ policy that envisions Central Asia as a stagepost for Asia-Europe trade. The Central Asian leaders returned home with billions of dollars worth of deals.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 329, published on May 20 2017)
MAY 15 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will open its much-vaunted uranium bank on Aug. 17, media reported quoting MP Kanat Bozumbaev. The uranium bank has been authorized by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and is designed to act as a resource for countries that want to develop nuclear energy. Kazakhstan is the world’s largest uranium producer.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 329, published on May 20 2017)