Tag Archives: Kyrgyzstan

Austria’s ILF signs deal to update Tajik HPP

DUSHANBE, JAN. 10 2016, (The Conway Bulletin) — Austrian company ILF Consulting Engineers signed a contract with Tajik state-owned utilities company Barqi Tojik to provide consulting services to modernise the Kayrakkum hydropower project, a key part of Tajikistan’s plans to become a regional exporter of electricity.

The Soviet-era facilities at the Kayrakkum plant have now reached the end of their lifecycle and the total cost of the modernisation of the plant is estimated at $169m. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development will finance around $50m.

Barqi Tojik also intends to increase capacity of the hydropower plant, from 126MW to 174MW, giving an annual total output of 900 GWh.

Tajikistan, which produces around 98% of its electricity from hydropower sources, is trying to improve its power capacity.

It is part of the CASA-1000 project, an ambitious export project to send electricity to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The project is due for completion in 2019 and to fulfil its role of supplier, Tajikistan needs to speed up its modernisation projects. Kyrgyzstan is also involved in the CASA-100 project. Last month, Kyrgyzstan’s biggest hydropower station, Toktogul, broke down.

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(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)

Russia drops Kyrgyz projects

DEC. 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev said a recession in Russia had hit the Kremlin’s finances so hard that it had pulled out of financing two hydropower projects in Kyrgyzstan. Russia’s economic demise presents an opportunity for China or others to fund infrastructure projects in Central Asia in return for influence. The two projects had been expected to cost $3.2b.

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(News report from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)

Editorial: Horse-play in Kyrgyzstan

JAN. 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Scottish welder Michael Mcfeat was seeing in the New Year at the canteen in the Kumtor gold mine high up in the Tien Shan mountains when he sent a message back home to friends in Scotland jokingly referring to the chuchuk, a horse-meat sausage, as a horse’s penis.

It was a joke that was intended to raise smiles back home, and it may well have done, but Mcfeat’s error was to make it on an open Facebook account. Locals workers read his joke. They were furious.

Mcfeat is back home now, lucky to have escaped a beating from angry locals, while the Toronto-listed Centerra Gold that runs the mine is dealing with the latest PR setback in its relations with Kyrgyzstan.

The Kyrgyz may be overly sensitive to foreigners laughing at their national identity but, 25 years after the fall of the USSR, it is still a young country. Instead, the onus should be on international companies working in Kyrgyzstan and the rest of Central Asia to educate their foreign staff and also to impose some all important social media rules and guidelines.

After all what the chuchuk is to the Kyrgyz, the haggis is to the Scots.

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(Editorial from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)

Kyrgyzstan’s Toktogul hydropower station breaks down

DEC. 23 2015, BISHKEK (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s largest hydropower station, Toktogul, broke down after a power surge knocked out three of its four generators, forcing the government to buy extra electricity from Kazakhstan.

The breakdown at Toktogul is embarrassing for Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atmabayev because three months ago, after the completion of a transmission line linking the power- generating south with the power consuming north, he proclaimed Kyrgyzstan was self sufficient in power. Kyrgyzstan also aims to export power to Pakistan from 2018.

Engineers working on Toktogul, which was built in 1976, said they expected the power plant to be back up and running from mid-January.

In the meantime, Kyrgyzstan announced a deal to buy electricity from neighbouring Kazakhstan to cover the shortfall.

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(News report from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)

Kyrgyz CBank sells US dollars

JAN. 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kyrgyz Central Bank sold $9.1m to prop up its ailing currency, media reported, its first intervention in 2016. Like the other countries of Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan has sold millions of dollars of its reserves to support its som. In December, media reported that it had intervened 17 times to prop it up.

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(News report from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)

Kyrgyzstan-Kumtor talks collapse

DEC. 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz government officials quit 2- year-long talks with Toronto-listed Centerra Gold, the company that owns the Kumtor gold mine, over a new ownership structure deal. Talks had focused on Kyrgyzstan swapping its 32.7% stake in Centerra Gold for a 50% stake in the subsidiary that directly owns the Kumtor mine. Relations between the two sides have been strained.

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(News report from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)

Kyrgyzstan expels Scottish worker after he insults horse-meat sausages

JAN. 5 2016, BISHKEK (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan deported a Scottish welder working at the country’s biggest gold mine after he jokingly described a horse-meat sausage delicacy as a horse’s penis, an incident that highlights Kyrgyz sensitivities over their national identity.

Michael Mcfeat wrote next to a photo on his Facebook account of workers lining up at a canteen at the Kumtor gold mine on New Year’s Eve: “The Kyrgyz people queuing out the door for there special delicacy the horses penis!!” (sic).

He was poking fun at the chu- chuk, a sausage made up of horse meat and fat which is boiled and served sliced up before festive meals. Local staff, though, at the gold mine, run by Toronto-listed Centerra Gold, were outraged and called a strike.

Mr Mcfeat, 39, tried to leave the country but was detained at Bishkek airport. Media suggested that he could have been prosecuted for racial hatred but instead he was deported for visa infringements.

Mr Mcfeat did not work directly for Centerra Gold but instead for a sub- contractor.

Still, it has aggravated relations between Centerra Gold and Kyrgyzstan. The two sides are locked in a dispute over ownership.

Adil Turdukulov, a Bishkek-based analyst, said relations between foreign and local staff at Kyrgyzstan’s various mining projects are strained over unequal pay and conditions.

“Tense relations between local and foreign employees of Kumtor have been growing, and this is just an effect,” he said.

Kyrgyzstan has been independent since 1991 and, like other Central Asian states, is sensitive about its identity.

And on the streets of Bishkek, most people thought that Mr Mcfeat had gotten off lightly.

Roza, 62, said that he should think before poking fun at Kyrgyzstan as some of Scotland’s own delicacies sounded foul.

“The Scots also eat sheep’s stomach stuffed with heart, oatmeal, guts and fat,” she said referring to haggis, a Scottish national dish.

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(News report from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)

Kyrgyzstan to construct pipeline to China

JAN. 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan will begin construction work on a new gas pipeline running to China in March, media reported quoting Deputy Economy Minister Aibek Kaliev. The pipeline, which will take several years to build, will complete a route running from gas fields in east Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and on to Kyrgyzstan and China.

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(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)

Kyrgyzstan woos Russians to Issyk Kul

DEC. 15 2015, BISHKEK (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s government wants Russian tourists now blocked from travelling to Turkey for a week or two in the sun to head to Lake Issyk-Kul instead.

Media quoted Mikhail Kim, deputy director of Kyrgyzstan tourism department, as saying that he expects an influx of Russians after Russia blocked tourists from travelling to Turkey in retaliation for a Turkish warplane shooting down a Russian warplane. He also said he had written to Russia’s tourism officials to encourage them to send people to Issyk-Kul and other Kyrgyz resorts.

“It is like in the USSR, when workers from all over the Soviet Union were coming to Kyrgyzstan for vacations,” he said.

Industry insiders, though, told the Bulletin that although there has been an increase in the number of Russians holidaying in Issyk-Kul to around 60,000 per year, they doubt there would be a deluge next summer.

The head of a local tour agency who preferred to remain anonymous told the Bulletin: “For the last 1-1⁄2 years, we have seen a gradual increase of Russian tourists coming to Kyrgyzstan, and we want to have more of them coming.”

During the Soviet Union, Issyk Kul used to be regarded as a top holidaying spots. It dropped back in popularity with the onset of cheap flights to Turkey and Europe, though.

Emil Umetaliev, head of the Kyrgyz Concept tour agency, said there would not be boost in tourism.

“We have high prices, bad service and long way from Russia,” he said told local media. Russia will prioritise their own resorts like Crimea, he added.

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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)

Kyrgyz President visits Kuwait

DEC. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev flew to Kuwait to open Kyrgyzstan’s new embassy. Mr Atambayev wants to boost ties with the Gulf states. He clearly considers this important as, with budgets under pressure, he has prioritised extending Kyrgyzstan’s diplomatic reach over other issues.

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(News report from Issue No. 261, published on Dec. 20 2015)