NOV. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan authorities have floated the prospect of renaming Kattakurgan, a city near Samarkand, after Islam Karimov, the local service of Russia’s Sputnik News said. Rumours about the possible renaming circulated among Kattakurgan residents, according to Sputnik. Karimov, Uzbekistan’s only post-Soviet president, died in September.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)
NOV. 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — An influential European Parliament committee backed a textile trade deal with Uzbekistan that had been moth- balled in 2011 on concerns over the use of child labour.
The vote is a triumph for Uzbekistan and acting-president Shavkat Mirziyoyev as it bestows credibility on the Uzbek cotton sector after years of negative headlines and boycotts by international clothing companies.
The Committee on International Trade will now recommend at a full European Parliament vote in December that a trade deal is made with Uzbekistan.
Reuters quoted Maria Arena, one of the MPs on the committee, as saying that Uzbekistan had improved its labour rights over the past few years.
“The progress made by the Uzbek authorities allows us to move forward and include textiles in our partnership agreement. But we will remain extremely vigilant,” she was quoted as saying.
Last year the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) monitored the Uzbek cotton harvest. It said in a report that there had been major improvements in the way labour was organised and although it was still commonplace for government workers to leave their jobs to pick cotton during the harvest, the use of child labour was far reduced.
Human rights groups, though, were adamant that the European Parliament needed to set an example and avoid a deal with Uzbekistan. In an open letter to the committee sent three days before its meeting, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said that it was because of the European Parliament’s rejection of a trade deal in 2011 that Uzbekistan agreed to open up to UN monitors. It also said that the scenario in Uzbekistan wasn’t as positive as the committee made out.
“We were pleased to note that as a result of international pressure since 2013 children have not been forced to pick cotton on a nationwide scale, and child labour has effectively declined. Yet, local officials reportedly still resort to forced child labour out of a need to fulfil their quotas,” HRW said in its letter.
“Since 2014 we have received steady reports of extortion linked to the cotton harvest.”
Cotton is one of Uzbekistan’s most important commodities. For Mr Mirziyoyev, the timing of the recommendation is also important. He faces a presidential election next month.
He is certain to win this election and become the second post-Soviet president of Uzbekistan after Islam Karimov who died in September, but he still needs to win over popular support. Backing from the European Parliament that child labour is reducing in Uzbekistan and a trade deal can now be made will strengthen his position.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)
SAMARKAND/Uzbekistan, NOV. 11 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Davlat, 33, was standing looking almost dreamily at Islam Karimov’s mausoleum. “I wish he’s ruled for another ten years,” he said.
In the West, Karimov, who ruled Uzbekistan from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, is considered a brutal dictator who ordered his soldiers to shoot his own people. In Uzbekistan, though, ordinary people pay homage to his foresight and magnanimity.
A long line of people were queuing up at the end of last month to pay their respects to Karimov.
The authorities had decided to bury him in Samarkand, where he was born and his mausoleum, like the other grand mausoleums in Uzbekistan’s most famous and most written about city, will gradually become another tourist site.
The Registan, a square in front of three madrassas, is a short walk away. It is the city’s most popular tourist site. It is also where Farkhod, 55, earns a living directing tourists.
“I remember days, when we used to get products like flour and bread only from food cards and now there is nothing that we do not produce ourselves. Cotton, wheat, machines,” he said.
“This is all thanks to Islam Karimov. May his soul rest in peace.”
Back in Tashkent, Bobor smiled when he thought of Karimov.
“I won a golden medal in boxing in 2006 and the President gave me this car,” he said proudly. Although it is now old and problematic, he said that he wouldn’t dream of selling it.
Most ordinary Uzbeks have their own stories of Karimov, focused on his image as a great leader and saviour.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 304, published on Nov. 11 2016)
NOV. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Since the passing of late-President Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan has been striding towards improving relations with its neighbours and, perhaps most importantly, its business climate.
This week’s decision to comply with International Labour Organisation regulations on freedom of assembly will allow the country to climb up the rankings of transparency and ease of doing business, as both workers and companies will, at least on paper, will enjoy more freedoms.
In early October, acting President and PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev also said that the authorities will have to ease up on ordering police raids on businesses, which investors have condemned as a way for public officials to ask for bribes. From Jan. 2017, police checks will have to be scheduled, unless there is a clear breach of the law.
Besides integrating better policies in its closed and strict regulatory system, Uzbekistan also seems to be opening up to new trade routes, as it has re-kindled its air link to London. This will open up in December.
Regular flights from Uzbekistan to Europe’s financial capital have suffered hiccups over the past decade and they were finally recently suspended. Uzbekistan Airways’ proposal to re-open the route, even just for a short term, could be important to put Tashkent back on the investors’ map.
All the recent improvements in Uzbekistan’s business sector, however, cannot overshadow problems with political and human rights. In December, Mr Mirziyoyev will be elected president. If Uzbekistan wants to convince investors, he will have to make progress in relaxing its regime and grant more freedoms.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)
OCT. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an apparent bid to improve its international business image, Uzbekistan ratified a UN convention that protects workers’ freedom of association and businesses’ rights to form lobby groups.
Acting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed into law Convention no. 87 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), a UN agency, which had originally been drawn up in 1948.
It is the 154th country, and the last in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, to ratify the Convention. Notably, the US, China and India are among the countries which have not ratified the Convention.
And for Uzbekistan this is something of a landmark. It has been the focus of criticism from international human rights activists, who denounced repression of the opposition and the lack of independent platforms for alternative dialogues.
Many Western clothing companies boycott Uzbek cotton because of its links to forced labour.
Foreign companies have also complained about the difficulties of operating in Uzbekistan, considered one of the most repressive countries in the world, and the ratification of the ILO convention may improve their lobbying potential.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)
OCT. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s three special economic zones will be ruled under a single, unified legal and tax regime, a presidential decree said. Uzbekistan’s government is trying to improve its business climate and this involves providing more transparent and consistent rules for special economic zones in Navoi, Angren and Jizzakh. It sees the SEZs as critical for attracting foreign investment. Korean Air has a transport hub, for example, at the Navoi SEZ.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)
BISHKEK, OCT. 31 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Delegations from Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan met to agree solutions to 49 long-running border disputes around the Ferghana Valley which, earlier this year, had threatened to tip into conflict.
The agreements mark the next stage in an unprecedented and surprising detente between the two rivals since Uzbek PM Shavkat Mirizyoyev was appointed acting president after the death of Islam Karimov in September.
This was the second of two meetings between the Uzbek and Kyrgyz deputy PMs. A third meeting is scheduled before the end of the year.
Bishkek-based analyst Elmira Nogoybaeva said the change in attitude in Tashkent was welcome but that Kyrgyzstan would need to see whether this was a genuine change of heart or a temporary fad.
“Such meetings are always welcomed by Kyrgyzstan, the question is how long will they last,” she said. “We all look to these meetings with optimism.”
The Ferghana Valley lies at the heart of Central Asia and analysts have previously said that if tension between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan over borders boils over into conflict, and this year there have been reports of Kyrgyz and Uzbek soldiers squaring up to each other, it will pull the whole region into war.
In Bishkek, people were optimistic. Ainagul, 43, said it was a positive but there would be problems ahead.
“Of course, it is good that borders are being delineated, now Kyrgyz people will know to whom territory belongs, and it will prevent conflict between Kyrgyz and Uzbek,” she said. “I still doubt though that conflicts on borders will stop altogether as we still have problems even on the Kyrgyz- Kazakh border which was supposed to have been delineated.”
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)
NOV. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A US judge postponed a final decision on the handling of illicit funds accumulated by Gulnara Karimova, daughter of Uzbekistan’s late-President Islam Karimov. Judge Andrew Carter ordered that the US and Uzbek parties will have to reach an agreement by the end of January 2017, a three-month extension on the previous deadline that expired on Nov. 2. The funds, around $600m which a US court had ring- fenced as illegal under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, are currently held in a Swiss bank account.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)
TASHKENT, NOV. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Anatoliy, 60, earns a living by ferrying children to school each day across Uzbekistan’s Soviet- built capital and then hawking for fares in his battered Daewoo Matiz, along the city’s wide boulevards.
“I used to spend 80,000 sum (around $25.7) per week to buy fuel for my car and now I spend 120,000 sum ($38.6),” he said with a resigned air.
On the issue of protesting against the price rises, he shrugged and said that people in Uzbekistan were different from people in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. “People here are ready to say ‘hop mailly’ [“let it be” in Uzbek] to whatever decision is taken by officials,” he said.
Uzbekistan is considered by most human rights organisations to be one of the most repressive countries in the world and anti-government demonstrations are virtually unheard of.
Officials have said that the price rises were needed to balance the price of petrol sold in the regions and in Tashkent. Many people, though, are skeptical and have said that the government is exporting too much petrol for its own profit.
Shokhrukh, 40, another Tashkent-based gypsy cab driver sucked in a deep breath when he was asked about the petrol price rises.
“Our oil reserves in the Bukhara deposit are now insufficient to cover domestic petrol demands and the government has to import petrol from Russia which they have to pay for in roubles and US dollars,” he said.
Like other Central Asian currencies, the Uzbek sum has lost value over the past couple of years, pushing up inflation.
But is it not only drivers who will be impacted by the rise in the cost of petrol. Shukhrat, 40, an ethnic Uyghur in Tashkent, who sells cloth at Tashkent local bazaar said that all prices will have to increase off the back of such a big jump in the price of petrol.
“Food requires transportation and consequently fuel, I expect some shop owners will rise their food prices,” he said.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)
TASHKENT, NOV. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The OSCE, Europe’s democracy watchdog, started its first long-term vote observation mission in Uzbekistan ahead of a presidential election on Dec. 4
ODHIR, the OSCE’s vote monitoring unit, has only previously sent short-term missions to Uzbekistan.
In a statement, ODHIR said the government had invited it to send a long-term monitoring team. This is important because it adds more weight to the impression that Uzbekistan is adopting an outward- looking agenda since the death of Islam Karimov in September. He was regarded as difficult to deal with and mistrustful of the West.
ODHIR will send a 15-person team headed by Swedish diplomat Peter Tejler to Tashkent and 20 more people will be dispatched to the regions.
Another 250 observers will be sent to Uzbekistan a few days before the vote on Dec. 4.
Last year, ODHIR sent a short term mission to monitor a presidential election. They reported that the election had lacked competition and contravened the rule of law.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)