JULY 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – An estimated 145 Kazakh and Chinese miners brawled in a canteen at a mine in eastern Kazakhstan on July 8, media reported. The brawl, which reportedly hospitalised 31 men, highlights the underlying ethnic tension at many Kazakhstan-China joint ventures.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
JULY 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – London-listed Anglo Asian Mining increased gold production by a third in the first half of the year. Anglo Asian Mining produces gold at Azerbaijani mines in which the government also owns a stake. If Anglo Asian has increased its gold production, the government will also have increased its revenue.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 240, published on July 16 2015)
JUNE 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – MPs in Kyrgyzstan resisted an attempt by the Ata-Meken party to impose stricter mining techniques at the Kumtor gold mine. Ata-Meken is part of the ruling coalition. Kumtor is owned by Toronto-based Centerra Gold. Kyrgyzstan has been arguing with Centerra over ownership of the mine.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 237, published on June 25 2015)
JUNE 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – MPs in Kyrgyzstan’s parliament have called for the introduction of a new tax on gold exports, media reported, pitting themselves, once again, against the country’s largest foreign investor.
The Kumtor gold east of the country is Kyrgyzstan’s single biggest industrial asset and parliamentarians said that its exports needed to be targeted to raise extra revenue for the national budget.
Centerra Gold, listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, owns Kumtor. The Kyrgyz government is a minority owner in Centerra. It has been fighting to increase its stake in the company and to gain more control over Kumtor itself. Earlier this year, a Kyrgyz PM resigned after failing to win concessions.
Mirlan Bakirov, an MP for the opposition Onuguu (Progress) party, proposed a 20% gold export tax to be instated at the beginning of 2016, while Alla Izmalkova of the Social Democratic Party argued for a similar tariff to start in 2018.
Official data showed that in 2014, Kyrgyzstan exported 85,000 tonnes of gold, an increase of around 36% from mine in the 2013.
But the issue of taxing gold exports has been passing around the Kyrgyz parliament for years without ever being resolved.
Earlier in June, Kozhobek Ryspayev, member of the Committee on Fuel and Energy, said an export tax would harm the mining industry. Valentin Bogdetsky, member of the Board of the Kyrgyz Mining Association similarly stated: “The imposition of an export duty on gold is not a solution to the problems between the industry and the government.”
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 236, published on June 18 2015)
JUNE 10 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s GDP was 6.9% higher at the end of May than it was a year earlier, the Kyrgyz national statistics office said. The main driver of this growth was the Kumtor gold mine, Kyrgyzstan’s largest industrial project.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 235, published on June 11 2015)
MAY 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In what could be a potential game-changer for Uzbekistan, President Islam Karimov has ordered the government to sell stakes in 68 large companies to strategic foreign investors.
Media quoted a presidential decree which said that stakes in companies such
as Navoiazot, a cement maker, and Turonbank would be up for sale.
“It is time to carry out a full-scale critical analysis of the availability and effectiveness of the presence of state shares in the economy, in other words, ‘the state’s presence in the economy’, and on this basis, to define our actions for a significant increase in the private sector’s presence in the economy,” media quoted Mr Karimov as saying.
It’s unclear from the decree and the media coverage who this apparent relaxation of state controls over Uzbek industry and commerce is actually aimed at.
Western business has generally had a strained relationship with Uzbekistan. There have been a number of instances where Western companies — generally metals companies — have accused Uzbekistan of grabbing their assets.
Instead, Uzbekistan may be thinking of Chinese companies, which have been making in-roads over the past few years, or even businesses from South Korea and India.
Uzbekistan’s economy, like other countries in the region has been struggling to cope with a downturn in global energy prices and a sharp fall in the performance of the Russian economy. Remittances from Russia have dropped considerably.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 231, published on May 13 2015)
MAY 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan plans to increase gold production by up to 30% between 2015 and 2019, the Azerbaijani news agency Trend quoted a government source as saying. Gold is a major source of foreign currency for the Uzbek government.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)
APRIL 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Djoomart Otorbayev resigned as Kyrgyzstan’s PM after barely a year in office.
The 59-year-old former international economist was the fourth Kyrgyz PM to resign since constitutional reform shifted power from the president to parliament in 2010.
Earlier this month the Kyrgyz government appeared to change tack significantly and argue for a great number of directors on the Centerra Gold board rather than the creation of a new company, with a 50:50 ownership, to run Kumtor.
His resignation was linked to the failure to secure a permanent solution to the ongoing row with Canada’s Centerra Gold over ownership of the Kumtor gold mine in east Kyrgyzstan — the country’s single biggest industrial asset.
“I think my decision to resign will allow the majority coalition to choose a more decisive prime minister,” Kyrgyz media quoted Mr Otorbayev as saying.
Kyrgyzstan owns 32.7% of Centerra Gold, which is listed in Toronto, and has been looking to boost its influence over the mine.
Importantly, Mr Otorbayev’s resignation highlights the unstable nature of Kyrgyz politics and also the dominance of the Kumtor ownership issue.
The three-party majority coalition now has 15 days to nominate a new PM for parliament.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)
MARCH 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – On a trip to Beijing, Kazakh PM Karim Massimov signed deals with his Chinese counterpart, Li Keqiang, worth $23.6b. The deals covered a range of industries from steel and glass production to oil refining and hydropower. China and Kazakhstan have increased cooperation in the past few years.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 225, published on April 12015)
MARCH 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The government of the Karaganda region has said that ArcelorMittal’s temporary move to knock 25% off its workers’ wages at its steel plant in Temirtau last month was illegal, the Tengrinews website reported. It has filed a lawsuit against ArcelorMittal, one of Kazakhstan’s biggest foreign investors.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 222, published on March 11 2015)