Tag Archives: Kyrgyzstan

Power consumption drops in Kyrgyzstan

APRIL 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Consumption of electricity in Kyrgyzstan was down 23% in March compared to last year, due to warm weather conditions, according to industry data. Total consumption amounted to 881m kWh. Severlektro, the largest distributor, said it delivered 438m kWh, 29% less than in March 2015. Previously an opposition MP had said a drop in electricity consumption showed the extent of the economic downturn.

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(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Kyrgyzstan expropriates resorts

APRIL 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kyrgyz government signed a decree to retake possession of four Uzbek-owned resorts near Lake Issyk-Kul. Buston, Rokhat, Dilorom, and Golden Sands are all owned by Uzbek entities, both public and private. These are Soviet- era vacation resorts that had been built in the 1960s. Tensions have been running high between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan since ethnic fighting in Osh in 2010.

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(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Editorial: Kazakh and Kyrgyz de-dollarisation

APRIL 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Central Banks in Central Asia are boasting about de-dollarisation these days, painting a rosy picture of their success in combating their economies’ dependence on the greenback.

A closer look at the stats, however, reveals that a combination of heavy interventions in the currency markets and interest rate tweaking were the main drivers of healthier Kazakh tenge and Kyrgyz som.

But now Central Banks have to grapple with inflation, which continues to grow, and demand for credit, which continues to shrink.

Central Banks propped up local currencies, against a US dollar that has now slowed its rise against Emerging Markets currencies and commodities.

Restrictions on exchange points, bans on pricing goods in dollars and public calls for confidence have all contributed to curbing the use of dollars.

But Central Banks might have run out of options now and they need to steer away from “crisis mode” if they want to really restore confidence in their still ailing currencies.

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(Editorial from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Kyrgyzstan bans price labels in foreign currencies

APRIL 2 2016, BISHKEK (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan banned labelling goods for sale in anything other than Kyrgyz som, a move it said would help strengthen the national currency and reduce its economy’s reliance on US dollars.

Since a crash in the value of local currencies in Central Asia and the South Caucasus last year, de-dollarisation has become a buzzword among Central Banks.

In Kyrgyzstan, the authorities have concentrated on persuading more people to use som over US dollars to buy goods. And this now includes banning shopkeepers from pricing goods in US dollars.

The punishment for pricing goods in US dollars still hasn’t been announced but it will be a challenge to the authorities to impose the ban successfully.

Zhumakadyr Akeneyev, a former head of oil traders association and now an economic commentator, said de-dollarisation was a positive step.

“Finally, for the first time since independence, we have turned our face to the national currency,” he said.

Other Kyrgyz said that while they broadly welcomed the move, they were also sceptical that it would work.

“I like this idea. Many people, who borrowed money from the banks in foreign currencies, suffered from devaluation of som,” said 25-year-old Saltanat. “However, I think the government should leave some space for use of foreign currencies too.”

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(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Gazprom cuts gas price for Kyrgyztan

APRIL 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russian gas company Gazprom cut the price of gas it sells to Kyrgyzstan by 9% to $150 per 1,000 cubic metres. Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev had been lobbying for this for some time, saying that a fall in global prices should mean a price reduction for consumers in Krygyzstan. Gazprom bought the Kyrgyz gas distributor in 2014 for a symbolic $1, promising to clear its debt and invest in infrastructure.

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(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Oil export ban is illogical, says ex-Kyrgyz official

APRIL 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – For the past six years, there has been an informal ban on petroleum exports from Kazakhstan to Kyrgyzstan, former president of Kyrgyzstan’s Oil Traders Association, Zhumakadyr Akeneyev, said at a conference in Bishkek. According to him this practice is illogical within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union and it has caused a rise in illegal trading. Kyrgyzstan imports almost all its petroleum products from Russia.

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(News report from Issue No. 275, published on April 8 2016)

Kyrgyz-Russian Dev. Fund to change rules

MARCH 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz PM Temir Sariyev said that the misfiring Kyrgyz-Russian Development Fund would reduce the minimum loan it is prepared to hand out to $1m from $3m. The Fund had been criticised as too heavily geared towards large businesses, because of the high loan requirement and the co-financing clauses. Earlier this month Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev sacked Nursulu Akhmetova as chair of the Fund.

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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Kyrgyz CBank cuts rates

MARCH 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s Central Bank cut interest rates on Tuesday by two percentage points to 8%, in an effort to boost the domestic economy, official media said. At the beginning of March, Central Bank chief Tolkunbek Abdygulov had said interest rates would have remained steady at 10%.

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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Kyrgyz President wins votes

MARCH 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The ruling Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan won three of the six major cities that held local elections, cementing its authority other regional cities that had previously been considered staunchly pro-opposition. The SDPK won in Osh, Tokmok and Kemin, three important regional cities in Kyrgyzstan.

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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)

Kyrgyzstan approves White Cliff plans

MARCH 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kyrgyz government approved exploration plans laid out by Australian miner White Cliff Minerals for its Aucu gold project. The agreement extends the exploration licence for White Cliff to 2020. Aucu, located in west Kyrgyzstan, holds an initial inferred resource of 4.83m tonnes of gold. Despite friction with its biggest foreign investor, Centerra Gold, at the Kumtor gold mine, Kyrgyzstan is still trying to woo foreign companies.

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(News report from Issue No. 274, published on April 1 2016)