Tag Archives: Uzbekistan

India and Pakistan join Central Asia-focused SCO

ALMATY, JUNE 9 2017 (The Bulletin) — India and Pakistan joined the Russia and China led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), pushing the military-economic group beyond Central Asia for the first time.

The SCO, set up in 2001 after Uzbekistan joined what had been called the Shanghai Five, now covers 3.1b people — nearly half the world’s population.

For Central Asia, the geographic focus of the SCO, the ascension of India and Pakistan confirms it as a fulcrum of world diplomacy and also pulls South Asia tighter into its economic sphere.

After its annual 2-day summit meeting in Astana, the SCO said: “The heads of state highlighted the historical significance of the SCO’s enlargement. They believe that granting full SCO membership to India and Pakistan at the current meeting of the SCO Heads of State Council will facilitate the further development and enhance the potential of the SCO.”

The success of the SCO has crept up on Western governments. It has largely been built on China’s drive into Central Asia.

Russia, through its Soviet legacy, has more access points into Central Asia than China and has largely used the SCO as a meeting place and for developing military ties. China, though, has used the SCO to dispense everything from cheap credit to infrastructure deals and military know- how and sees it as a vital cog in its ‘One Belt. One Road’ strategy focused on developing trade corridors to Europe.

Sheng Shiliang, a researcher at the Xinhua Center for World Affairs Studies, told Chinese media that SCO expansion was important to China.

“The SCO has never been just a security group from the beginning. The Belt and Road Initiative offers a timely and convenient framework for the SCO members to facilitate connectivity and ultimately, achieve free flows of goods, capital, service and technology,” he said.

For India and Pakistan, joining the SCO will increase their presence in Central Asia. Over the past five years, India has been trying to catch up with China’s progress in the region. It wants to develop markets and buy up energy projects.

Pakistan has developed links mainly through the TAPI gas pipeline, which will run from Turkmenistan and also through the CASA-1000 electricity scheme which will send power generated by hydropower stations in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

The only country in Central Asia that is not a member of the SCO is Turkmenistan, which has traditionally taken a more isolationist neutral stance to international organisations.

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(News report from Issue No. 332, published on June 12 2017)

UN Sec-Gen visits

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JUNE 7 2017 (The Bulletin) — UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres started a tour of Central Asia by flying into Kazakhstan. He was due to attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organsiation (SCO) in Astana before flying to Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. This is the first visit by a UN Secretary General to Central Asia since 2015.

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(News report from Issue No. 332, published on June 12 2017)

Uzbek Parliament approves new CB chief

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JUNE 6 2017 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s parliament approved the relatively unknown Mamarizo Nurmuratov as the new Central Bank chairman. He had been chairman of the Senate’s budget and economic reforms committee. His appointment, as a replacement for Faizulla Mullajanov who died after 26 years in the post, highlights the relative junior nature of the Central Bank chief in Uzbekistan.

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(News report from Issue No. 332, published on June 12 2017)

Fibre optic production starts in Uzbekistan

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MAY 30 2017 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan plans to start producing fibre optic cables, mainly for domestic use, media reported. Telecompaper.com said that production was planned at 50,000km of cables every year and that Uzbekistan would lay 277,000km of cables by 2021, part of a scheme to expand its the Uzbek broadband network. Pres. Shavkat Mirziyoyev has said he wants to create jobs through infrastructure schemes.

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(News report from Issue No. 331, published on June 5 2017)

Uzbekistan prepares metro rail plan

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MAY 31 2017 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan plans to start building a metropolitan rail system around Tashkent, media reported. Reports said that the cost of the $320m project would be split between the government ($185m), the Fund for Reconstruction and Development of Uzbekistan ($20m) and China’s Exim Bank ($115m). Since becoming president in Sept. last year, Shavkat Mirziyoyev has placed major emphasis on infrastructure development.

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(News report from Issue No. 331, published on June 5 2017)

GM sells cars in Uzbek soum

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JUNE 2 2017 (The Bulletin) — GM Uzbekistan, a joint-venture between the US’ GM and state- owned Uzavtosanoat, started selling its cars in Uzbek soum for the first time, Reuters reported, rolling back a Karimov-era policy that insisted that the cars were sold in US dollars. Karimov was Uzbek president from 1991 until his death in September 2016. His successor, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, has promised to liberalise Uzbekistan’s economy. Karimov had wanted cars sold in soum in order to bring more foreign currency into the country.

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(News report from Issue No. 331, published on June 5 2017)

ADB lends $500m to Uzbekistan

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JUNE 1 2017 (The Bulletin) — The Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved a $500m loan to Uzbekistan to build 29,000 affordable houses in rural areas. The ADB has said that housing stock in Uzbekistan’s rural areas is particularly poor. Since Shavkat Mirziyoyev took over as president in 2016, institutional development banks have been lining up to lend Uzbekistan money for various projects.

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(News report from Issue No. 331, published on June 5 2017)

Uzbekistan bans violent computer games to protect “civil harmony”

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TASHKENT, MAY 25 2017 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s government banned 34 computer games because it said that they were too violent and corrupted their users.

Investors and Western analysts will be concerned that the ban betrays an authoritarian streak in Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s administration but gamers in Tashkent suggested that it smacked more of a lack of understanding and incompetence.

The surprise announcement banned violent computer games such as Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty but also covered less aggressive games such as The Sims which focuses on parenthood.

The Uzbek government press release said that the games were a threat “to the political stability of the country, civil peace, interethnic and interreligious harmony”.

Mr Mirziyoyev has been Uzbek president since September 2016 when the authoritarian Islam Karimov, who banned pool halls, died. Mr Mirziyoyev has made a virtue of appearing less authoritarian than his predecessor, talking up the possibility of currency liberalisation and opening up to foreign investors.

In Tashkent, kiosks selling computer games continued to trade as normal with shopkeepers claiming that they hadn’t even heard of the ban. And there was also a sense in internet cafes that the government didn’t understand gaming culture.

One gamer who wished to remain anonymous said that most people download their games over the internet.

“This ban won’t have any effect,” he said. “Real gamers don’t visit internet cafes as the computers there aren’t powerful enough for the games on the banned list.”

Another gamer said the ban was “feckless” and “stupid”. He said the government had already tried and failed to ban hundreds of films as well as Valentine’s Day, Halloween and Christmas.

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(News report from Issue No. 331, published on June 5 2017)

Uzbekistan’s senate ratifies cotton deal with the European Union

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TASHKENT, MAY 30 2017 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s Senate ratified a deal with the European Union over textile exports, paving the way for an expected boost in one of the country’s most important revenue earning products.

The senate’s processing of the protocol was routine but it came only a week after an EU delegation visited Uzbekistan to discuss progress it had made on human rights. At the end of last year, the European Parliament voted to renew a 1999 deal to drop tariffs on cotton imports from Uzbekistan.

It had been suspended in 2011 over concerns about Uzbekistan’s use of child labour to pick the cotton.

During its visit the European Parliament’s human rights subcommittee had said that it was impressed with Uzbekistan’s openness.

“Our impression now, after a three-day visit, is of a country where change is in the air, the road to openness and modernisation lies open if the political resolve to choose the path is strong and consistent,” the group said in a statement.

Human rights groups have said that normalising trade deals over Uzbek cotton has come too early but for Uzbekistan it will be a boost.

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(News report from Issue No. 331, published on June 5 2017)

Cerrencies: Kazakhstan’s tenge, Kyrgyzstan’s som

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JUNE 5 2017 (The Bulletin) — In a week of little movement, it fell to the Kazakh tenge to, quite literally, fall – but only slightly. It fell 1.1% to trade at a shade above 314/$1, its lowest since mid-May.

The move was, probably, triggered by a downward shift in Brent oil prices. The price of Brent dropped to just above $50/barrel. This is still within the generally accepted trade corridor and the impact on oil-sensitive currencies around the world was limit. The surprise was that the Azerbaijani manat, already smashed by the near- collapse of its biggest bank, didn’t shift downwards.

Elsewhere, the Uzbek soum continued its slow and controlled depreciation, down 0.6%, and the Kyrgyz som fell 1.1% to 68.1/$1 – its lowest since the end of April.

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(News report from Issue No. 331, published on June 5 2017)