FEB. 7 (The Conway Bulletin) — China’s Huaxin Cement said it will construct a new cement factory in Uzbekistan’s Jizzakh region. The plant will cost $150m to build and have a capacity of 1.2m tonnes per year. The new plant is expected to start operations in December. Several companies have built cement factories in Central Asia over the past few years.
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>This story was first published in issue 399 of The Conway Bulletin on Feb. 8 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
FEB. 4 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Uzbek Central Bank gave Kazakhstan’s Halyk Bank permission to open its first branch in Uzbekistan. The move is important as it signals the Uzbek authorities willingness to further open up the country since Shavkat Mirziyoyev took over as president. Halyk Bank is the biggest bank in Kazakhstan. Georgia’s TBC Bank has also said that it is interested in entering the Uzbek banking sector.
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>This story was first published in issue 399 of The Conway Bulletin on Feb. 8 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
FEB. 1 (The Conway Bulletin) — From Feb. 1, citizens from 45 countries from the developed world will be allowed into Uzbekistan for 30 days without a visa. Former Soviet countries and some others already had visa-free access to Uzbekistan but the new legislation now includes EU member states as well as countries such as Australia, Canada and Argentina. Citizens from the US, are still not eligible for visa-free travel.
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>This story was first published in issue 399 of The Conway Bulletin on Feb. 8 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
FEB. 5 (The Conway Bulletin) — Abdulaziz Kamilov, Uzbekistan’s foreign minister, told the UN that Uzbekistan was willing to host another round of talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government. Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has been looking to play a bigger international role. Uzbekistan hosted talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government in August 2018.
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>This story was first published in issue 399 of The Conway Bulletin on Feb. 8 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
FEB. 4 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan is testing investor sentiment towards the possible issue of either a 5-year or 10-year sovereign debt issue, Bloomberg News reported. It said that Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Gazprombank had been hired for what would be Uzbekistan’s first bond issue. Last year, Uzbekistan was given its first sovereign debt rating.
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>This story was first published in issue 399 of The Conway Bulletin on Feb. 8 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 31 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan has lifted the ban on studying political science at university, Reuters reported, another indicator of how the country has opened up under President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. The Reuters report said universities had dropped political science in 2013 as it was deemed to be promoting theories counter to then-President Islam Karimov’s “Uzbek model”.
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>This story was first published in issue 399 of The Conway Bulletin on Feb. 8 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
FEB. 7 (The Conway Bulletin) — Two human rights groups said that forced labour in Uzbekistan was still a major problem despite assurances by the government that it had been eradicated in its cotton industry. Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights and the U.S.-based Solidarity Center said in a report based on 260 interviews that teachers and other public sector workers were still expected to clean streets, plant trees and harvest wheat.
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>This story was first published in issue 399 of The Conway Bulletin on Feb. 8 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 28/30 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan’s Central Banks kept their interest rates steady because of low inflation. Falling prices have been a feature of the economies of the region since they recovered from an economic downturn in 2014-17. Kazakhstan’s interest rate is currently 9.25% and Uzbekistan’s lies at 16%.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 22 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a decree that should lead to the privatisation of the country’s main gold producer the Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Company (NMMC). The decree said that NMMC should be privatised by December 2019. NMMC and Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Company (AMMC) produce an estimated 80% of Uzbekistan’s gold.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019
JAN. 28 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan extradited Kazakh Artur Trofimov, a former executive at BTA Bank, to Kazakhstan for suspected money laundering and embezzlement. BTA Bank was a bank that the Kazakh government had to buy in 2008/9 to rescue it from bankruptcy. Its former chairman, Mukhtar Ablyazov, is currently in Paris after appealing against an extradition order. A French judge agreed with his argument that he was at risk of torture if he was returned to Kazakhstan. Since fleeing Kazakhstan in 2009, Ablyazov has turned himself into the leading critic of Pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev.
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>This story was first published in issue 398 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 31 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019