Tag Archives: Uzbekistan

24-hour news channel to be set up in Uzbekistan

MAY 5 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan will start broadcasting its own 24 news channel, the gazeta.uz news website reported by quoting a presidential decree. It’s not clear if Ozbeksitan-24 will broadcast in Russian or Uzbek or both, but the channel’s ambitions are clear as it will have a staff of over 250 journalists, including its own foreign correspondents. Pres. Shavkat Mirziyoyev has been critical of Uzbek state TV news coverage in the past, calling it boring.

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(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)

Uzbek president orders to rename airport after Karimov

MAY 4 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek president issued a decree renaming Tashkent International Airport after former president Islam Karimov. Karimov died in September 2016 having ruled Uzbekistan since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. He has been genuinely mourned in Uzbekistan but to outsiders he is remembered more for having a poor human rights record and his cantankerous, isolationist foreign policy.

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(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)

Uzbekistan starts building oil refinery

APRIL 27 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan started construction of a $2.2b oil refinery near the border with Kazakhstan, a project that will boost jobs and should also plug a yawning fuel supply gap.

The Jizzakh refinery will be Uzbekistan’s fourth and will produce more than 3.7m tonnes of gasoline, more than 700,000 tonnes of jet fuel and about 300,000 tonnes of other oil products annually, according to officials.

It will receive unrefined oil through a yet-to-be-built pipeline from Kazakhstan, helping to cement improving bilateral relations.

The refinery is the most high- profile project initiated under President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Uzbek leader since September last year. He has made boosting jobs and improving bilateral relations with Uzbekistan’s neighbours his core policy initiatives.

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(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)

UzGazOil workers complain about salaries

MAY 3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Employees at Uzbekistan’s state- owned UzGasOil network of petrol stations have not been paid their salaries, the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty website reported. It said that in a rare show of worker defiance in Uzbekistan, the UzGasOil employees had complained directly to the management about their unpaid salaries. RFE/RL quoted one worker saying that he was owed about $125 for two months work. RFE/RL contacted UzGasOil, rebranded from Uzbekneftegaz this year, who denied that there was a problem. In Uzbekistan, protests by workers against company management are virtually unheard of.

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(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)

Uzbek president reveals hydropower plan

MAY 4 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a decree, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said that he wanted to develop hydropower stations across the country to plug a power gap. The plan is to build 42 small hydropower stations over the next five years with another 32 being built afterwards. Uzbekistan’s power generation systems has long-needed an overhaul, with its over-reliance on Soviet kit.

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(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)

 

Uzbekistan Airways boosts passenger numbers

MAY 1 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — State-owned Uzbekistan Airways carried 563,100 passengers in Q1 2017, a 5.1% increase from the same period in 2016, it said in a statement. The increase in passenger numbers is a reflection of a new policy to invest in new aircraft and new routes. Uzbekistan Airways also said that it carried nearly 25% more cargo in Q1 2017 compared to Q1 2016.

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(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)

Uzbekistan receives second high-speed train from Spain

APRIL 26 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan has taken delivery of a second train from Spain’s Patentes Talgo, media reported, scheduled to run along the recently modernised Tashkent to Bukhara route. The first train was delivered in March under a contract worth 38m euro. Each train carries 287 passengers. The Tashkent to Bukhara route is the second major route in Uzbekistan to deploy high- speed trains. Two similar trains have operated along the Tashkent- Samarkand-Karshi route since 2009. New president Shavkat Mirziyoyev has promised to continue his predecessor’s investment in major infrastructure projects such as high-speed railway.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Turkey wants to boost ties with Uzbekistan

APRIL 26 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — On a trip to Tashkent, Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that he wanted to see improved ties with Uzbekistan, a boost to new president Shavkat Mirziyoyev who has been trying to woo his neighbours . Relations between Uzbekistan and Turkish had been strained under Mr Mirziyoyev’s predecessor, Islam Karimov, with the Turkish business community in Tashkent, a sizable and influential group, complaining of being unfairly targeted by the authorities.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Uzbek museum opens exhibit in Moscow

APRIL 23 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Arguably the most famous, talked about and least visited museum in Central Asia is going on show in Moscow until May 10.

The Savitsky Collection is usual housed in a museum in Nukus, western Uzbekistan, one of the most remote corners of the world and better-known for the Aral Sea environmental disaster.

Its curator was Igor Savitsky, a Ukrainian archaeologist posted to Nukus who secretly toured the Soviet Union collecting banned artwork.

The exhibition is hosted at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Art. Reports said that Russian President Vladimir Putin was among the first to visit.

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(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)

Car production in Uzbekistan halves after tough 2016

APRIL 27 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Car production in Uzbekistan halved in 2016, state-owned Uzavtoprom said, highlighting the problems that one of the country’s most high- profile industries is facing.

Data on car production in Uzbekistan, an important employer around the city of Andijan in the Ferghana Valley, is tightly controlled and for the state’s main car producer to admit that there is a problem means that it is nervous about its future.

Last year the GM Uzbekistan joint venture with US’s GM which is based at the Andijan plant produced 88,200 cars out of total Uzbek car production of 92,625.

There was no comment on the press release, although it was widely cited across Uzbek media.

Last year was a decidedly tough year for the Uzbek car industry. It is reliant for much of its sales on Russia which has been dealing with a recession triggered by a fall in energy prices and by Western imposed sanctions. Sales figures repeatedly reported a drop in demand of around 37%.

GM Uzbekistan also had problems with its distributors in Uzbekistan, with the life.ru website reporting in May 2016 that it may be forced to stop exports to Russia altogether because of the bankruptcy of its partner in the Voronezh region.

Since then, GM Uzbekistan has said that it is starting to export cars to both Tajikistan and Belarus, an apparent attempt to reduce its over- reliance on Russia for its market.

And there was also a corruption scandal that enveloped its top management. This included Tokhirjon Jalilov, who was arrested and sacked as chairman of GM Uzbekistan after allegedly being involved in a scam to sell cars to neighbouring Kazakhstan to a proxy company and then re-importing them back to Uzbekistan where they were sold to consumers.

The accusation was that the company’s management pocketed the difference.

GM owns 25% of GM Uzbekistan and Uzavtoprom owns 75%.

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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 326, published on April 28 2017)