Tag Archives: Kazakhstan

Kazakh officials arrest head of construction department

JULY 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh anti-corruption agency ordered the arrest of Yerkin Bukharbayev, head of the construction department in the city of Shymkent, southern Kazakhstan. Mr Bukharbayev is accused of having embezzled public funds during a tender in 2013 to improve the flow of the Badam river which runs through the city. Bukharbayev and his associates allegedly stole 170m tenge ($1.1m at the time).

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Kazakh energy company spat worsens

JULY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an increasingly vicious argument, Kazakhstan’s state-owned energy company Kazmunaigas accused independent directors of its London-traded upstream subsidiary KMG EP, of misrepresenting its position over a buy-out scheme it was trying to promote. Kazmunaigas’ letter, published by Kazakhstan’s stock exchange, said that its purchase offer for KMG EP’s GDRs still stands and that the independent directors had overesti- mated KMG EP’s operational performance.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Loans in Kazakh banks shrink

JULY 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The proportion of overdue loans held by Kazakh banks in their combined portfolio shrank from 22.8% to 8.6% at the end of May 2016, compared to a year earlier, Central Bank data showed. The main reason behind the sharp decrease, though, is that Kazkommertsbank, Kazakhstan’s biggest lender, wrote off most of its bad debt.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Kazakhstan’s Air Astana reports loss

JULY 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s flagship company Air Astana reported a loss of $6.6m in H1 2016, compared to a $8.3m profit in the same period last year. Importantly, passenger numbers decreased by 7% to 1.7m. Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna (51%) and Britain’s BAE Systems (49%) own Air Astana.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Kazakh minister of economy receives new roles

JULY 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In his capacity as head of the Baiterek state holding, Yerbolat Dossayev, former Kazakh minister of economy, was named chairman of Zhilstroisberbank, a top-15 bank in Kazakhstan and subsidiary of Baiterek. A few days later Mr Dossayev was also named head of KazExportGarant, an export credit agency, and chairman of Kazakhstan’s Investment Fund, which are both managed by Baiterek.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Kazakh C. Bank cuts interest rates

JULY 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s Central Bank lowered its key interest rate by two percentage points to 13%, official media reported. The Central Bank cited higher oil prices, slowing inflation and the volatility in global markets after Britain’s referendum to leave the EU as the main factors leading to the rate cut. This is the second rate cut in just over two months.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Stock market: Anglo Asian Mining

JULY 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Helped by the Brexit impact, shares in Azerbaijan’s Anglo Asian Mining soared at the end of June. A positive outlook has now sent them up again. Its shares closed at 19.5p on Thursday, up 5.4% in one week.

At the end of June, Anglo Asian said it would sell the remainder of its 2016 production as futures, which gave a bullish message to investors, as the company tried to raise cash to pay out some of its debt.

Despite posting a production cut in H1 2016, the company was upbeat because the second quarter outperformed the first.

“The second half of the year has historically been our best performing half due to the seasonally better weather and our production will also benefit from the second SAG mill which is due to start operating next month,” CEO Reza Vaziri said in a statement.

Overall it was a positive week for most Central Asia and South Caucasus-linked stocks, lifted by increased stability in oil and gold prices.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Kazakh court fines opposition newspaper

ALMATY, JULY 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a case that media freedom lobbyists say shows how Kazakhstan is muzzling independent media, a court in Almaty ordered the opposition newspaper Tribuna/ Ashyk Alan to pay 5m tenge ($14,836) in damages to government official Sultanbek Syzdykov after it described him as corrupt for stealing 23m tenge ($68,249) from the budget of the 2011 Asian Games.

Although police launched an investigation into Mr Syzdykov, the court ruled that the newspaper could not describe him as corrupt because he had repaid the amount he had stolen.

Denis Krivosheyev, the Tribuna journalist who wrote the story, said that the verdict was nonsense.

“This government official was convicted of corruption,” he told reporters outside the court. “It is a fact that no one denies.”

Western government and media freedom groups have accused Kazakhstan of cracking down on free speech. Earlier this year, Guzyal Baidalinova, editor of the opposition Nakanune.kz website, was convicted of slander against Kazkommertsbank, Kazakhstan’s largest bank. She was released from prison, also on July 12, although her guilty sentence remains.

The government has cracked down on the media this year, partly as a reaction to a worsening eco- nomic outlook and to increasing unrest in the country.

Yermurat Bapi, a trustee of the journalists’ union in Kazakhstan told The Conway Bulletin that the media environment was worsening.

“This authoritarian system that was developed over 15 to 20 years has become obsolete, it is dying and with its last gasp is trying to preserve and protect itself through bans, persecutions and the courts,” he said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Tuleshov paid money to protesters, says Kazakh security committee

JULY 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee said that imprisoned businessman Tokhtar Tuleshov paid around $200 to each of the demonstrators that rallied in several Kazakh cities against proposed amendments to the land code in April and May. The Committee said that Tuleshov, in prison since Jan. 30, had organised the protests in 2015, in an effort to overturn the government.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)

Norway closes its embassy in Kazakhstan to save money

ALMATY, JULY 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Looking to cut costs Norway closed its embassy in Astana, a blow to Kazakhstan’s self-image as an important international diplomatic player.

Norway’s embassy in Astana had been its only diplomatic mission in Central Asia since it opened in 2009. Now, a single Norwegian diplomat in Oslo will be responsible for Central Asian affairs.

Last December, Astana was listed among four other embassies for closure. These were Sofia (Bulgaria), Lusaka (Zambia) and Harare (Zimbabwe).

Norway’s foreign ministry said cutting the four embassies would reduce its diplomatic presence in the world to 83 countries.

“The ministry must adapt to the changes that are taking place in the world, taking into account the resources available to run missions abroad,” the ministry said in a note.

Norway’s income is reliant on revenue from oil and gas sales. Energy prices have halved in the last two years.

A Kazakh foreign ministry spokesman declined to comment.

With Norway’s departure there will now be 64 embassies in Astana. Norway’s exit is also a blow to Kazakhstan’s international image in the run-up to EXPO-2017 in Astana.

Just weeks ago, Kazakhstan secured a much-coveted non-permanent seat at the UN Security Council for 2017-18 and it proudly hosted a summit of the OSCE in 2010. Indra Over- land, research professor at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs told The Conway Bulletin that a mix of international crises and lack of interest has driven Norway away from Kazakhstan.

“The general Norwegian engagement in Central Asia has gone down, because of factors such as the European refugee crisis and the Ukraine crisis,” Mr Overland said.

“The lack of interesting projects available for the Norwegian oil company Statoil in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan also contributed [to the waning engagement].”

In 2013, Norway’s Statoil aban- doned the Abai offshore oil project after a lengthy negotiation with Kazakhstan’s state-owned Kazmunaigas.

Now the only city with a Norwegian embassy in the Central Asia/South Caucasus region is Baku. Statoil, the part-state owned Norwegian energy company, still operates projects in Azerbaijan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 289, published on July 15 2016)