Tag Archives: Uzbekistan

Tajikistan-Uzbekistan flight resumes

FEB. 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — >> So what has happened? I’ve read that a commercial flight has flown between Dushanbe and Tashkent

>> Yes, that’s right. This was the first commercial flight between the Tajik and Uzbek capital since 1992. In 1992, Tajikistan was just tipping over into a civil war when commercial flights were scrapped but they were never re-instated after the war petered out a few years later. By this time Emomali Rakhmon had secured himself as the president of Tajikistan, a position he still holds. Uzbekistan was then ruled by Islam Karimov, who died in September last year. The two men loathed each other, Karimov was notoriously cantankerous and Rakhmon is quarrelsome.

>> So, the row was entirely personal?

>> Much of it was but there was also a macro-political and economic angle too. Tajikistan has long-planned to build a dam at Rogun in the Pamir Mountains. This was a Soviet-era plan that never moved from the drawing board into reality. Tajikistan, though, needed to generate more electricity and has been looking for backers for years. And this irritated Uzbekistan and Karimov who argued that the dam would damage water flows downstream where Uzbek cotton fields needed to be irrigated. At times the row became so heated that it threatened to spill over into war that may have dragged in neighbours.

>> What has changed?

>> Karimov’s death in September changed Uzbekistan’s foreign policy outlook. The new president Shavkat Mirziyoyev has been far more positive in promoting relations with Uzbekistan’s neighbours. This has included Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The resumption of a commercial flight between the two capitals may feel a bit of a token gesture but it is actually a very significant step forward for bilateral relations. Rakhmon actually invited Mirziyoyev to Dushanbe for a bilateral meeting last month. This was something that would have been unimaginable under Karimov.

>> And now that flights have resumed, what can we expect?

>> The first flight was operated by Somon Air, a Tajik airline. It is likely that the airline will look to set up a regular service between the two cities. And just making that link, just having it there, is an important part of the heeling process for the region. It’s blighted by complex borders, thanks Stalin, and disparate pockets of ethnic groups, making travel links important. This is especially so between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Many of the people living in Uzbekistan are ethnic Tajiks. Previously, to travel between the two cities, people had to make tortuous road trips that would take days.

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(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Uzbekistan wants to process all its raw cotton

FEB. 8 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan wants to process 100% of its raw cotton harvest by 2020, the fibre2fashion.com website reported, signifying a potential step-change in its cotton export strategy.

The fibre2fashion website said that Uzbekistan currently processed only 40% of its cotton harvest and that it would need an investment of

$2.2b to build the processing facilities needed to hit this target. Cotton is one of Uzbekistan’s biggest commodities but it has been stigmatised by its association with child labour. Many Western brands have refused to buy clothing that contains Uzbek cotton.

Over the past few years, though, the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) has said the Uzbek authorities have reduced their reliance on child labour.

And constructing cotton processing plants would also create much needed jobs and help push rural Uzbekistan from a predominantly agrarian society towards a more industrialised one.

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(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

EBRD heads to Uzbek capital

FEB. 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) sent its first mission to Tashkent to meet with officials from the new government of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev for the first time since Islam Karimov died in September, Reuters reported. Reuters suggested that this visit was important as it might signal renewed interest in investing in Uzbekistan by the EBRD.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Uzbekistan to receive funding from Kuwait

FEB. 9 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Apparently looking to extend its influence in Uzbekistan and Central Asia, Kuwait said that it would funnel another $60m into various social projects, according to a notice on the Uzbek foreign ministry website. Last year Kuwait’s Fund for Arab Development pledged to give $24m to buy urology equipment for Uzbekistan’s health service.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Tajikistan makes first flight to Uzbekistan in 25 years

FEB. 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Somon Air flight made the first passenger flight between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan for 25 years, highlighting the improved relations with neighbours that Uzbek president Shavkat Mirziyoyev has ordered his officials to develop since taking over the presidency in September. Mr Mirziyoyev took over from Islam Karimov who died on Sept. 2 after ruling Uzbekistan for 25 years. Somon Air is a Tajik airline. According to reports there were 65 passengers on the first flight.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

Uzbekistan to give rural households chickens and lemons to boost economy

FEB. 9 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Uzbek government plans to give around 2m households who live in rural areas chickens and lemon trees to feed themselves and to trade, the Reuters news agency reported quoting a document published on a government website.

The handouts are a core part of the drive by the new Uzbek administration, headed by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, to kick-start the rural economy. According to World Bank data, around 14% of Uzbekistan’s 31.3m people live in poverty, mainly in rural areas where two-thirds of the population live.

Specifically, the government wants to give 850,000 families up to 100 chickens each and to help another 1.07m households to build greenhouses for lemon trees. A government agency will then buy back some of these chickens and lemons for export.

Mr Mirziyoyev has been president of Uzbekistan since September 2016 when Islam Karimov died.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)

ILO says making progress in scrapping forced labour in Uzbekistan

FEB. 2 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) said that Uzbekistan was making progress in eradicating child labour from its cotton harvests. Uzbekistan has come under intense criticism for using school children to pick the crop. Several Western fashion retailers have refused to stock products which have been made with Uzbek cotton.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 315, published on Feb. 3 2017)

Flights to resume between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan

FEB. 1 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Somon Air, Tajikistan’s national airline, has scheduled a first Tajikistan-Uzbekistan flight since 1992 for Feb. 10, media reported. Regular flights are expected to start up between Dushanbe and Tashkent on Feb. 20. These flights are important as they signify a sea- change in relations between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, who have quarrelled for years, since the death in September of Uzbekistan’s president Islam Karimov.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 315, published on Feb. 3 2017)

Uzbek president pledges to invest $2.6b developing the Aral Sea region

JAN. 31 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev ordered his government to spend $2.6b developing the area around the Aral Sea, a major investment in a region that was decimated by one of the Soviet Union’s most notorious economic development policies.

Reporting on the decree, RFE/RL said that that the investment would create new jobs and homes as well as improve sanitation and medical service.

The Aral Sea was once the world’s fourth largest inland water but in the 1960s, the Soviets diverted water from the great Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers that flow from the Pamir mountains into the Aral Sea, toirrigate their cotton fields. The Aral Sea was, literally starved of water. Since then the Aral Sea has lost 90% of its water and become a watchword for man-made environmental disasters.

The eye-catching initiative to regenerate the region comes at a time when Mr Mirziyoyev is trying to set himself apart from his predecessor, Islam Karimov, who died in September. He has ordered officials to repair damaged relations with neighbours and also boosted domestic investment.

Although light on detail, the plan will give Karakalpakstan, the most western and poorest region in Uzbekistan, a boost.

And it needs it. Karakalpakstan’s main city is Nukus, a former secret city built by the Soviets to house workers for their chemical weapons plants. Moynaq, 120km north through the desert, was the main city on the Uzbek side of the Aral Sea. It used to house various industries, including a plant that canned fish for export across the Soviet Union. That plant and the rest of the town now lies rotting and rusting having been abandoned in the 1980s.

Eeking out a living in Moynaq is difficult. One of its main revenue earners now is from tourists travelling from Nukus to walk around and photograph the rusting fishing fleet now marooned 60km from the Aral Sea. It is described as a ships’ graveyard.

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(News report from Issue No. 315, published on Feb. 3 2017)

Freedom House says rights in Central Asia and the South Caucasus worsened in 2016

JAN. 31 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In its annual report mapping out the status of just how free people are to express themselves, the US-based NGO Freedom House said that in 2016 the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus cracked down on civil liberties.

Freedom House rates Georgia as the best place for civil liberties in the region, with a “Partly Free” status. It also gave this ranking to Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. The others were ranked “Not Free” with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan listed as two of the most repressive regimes in the world.

“Apparently unnerved by the repercussions of a lengthy slump in oil prices, the rulers of Azerbaijan and the Central Asian states used tightly controlled constitutional referendums to extend their rule into the future,” Freedom House wrote.

The Freedom House assessment of civil rights broadly mirrors the assessment of human rights groups who have been warning of worsening conditions in the region.

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(News report from Issue No. 315, published on Feb. 3 2017)