Tag Archives: Uzbekistan

Uzbek President meets Korea bank

SEPT. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek president Islam Karimov met with Lee Duk-hoon, President of the Korean state-owned Eximbank in Tashkent to discuss Korean investments in the country. After the negotiations, Mr Lee brokered the signing of an inter-banking agreement with Asaka Bank, opening a credit line of $160m for Uzbekistan. Korean Eximbank is a key partner for Uzbekistan’s infrastructure and banking projects.

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(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Uzbek-Kyrgyz trade halves

SEPT. 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In Jan.-July 2015, trade turnover between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan halved to $78.4m compared to the same period in 2014, according to Kyrgyz customs data. The figure shows the impact of the economic downturn.

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(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

VimpelCom in Uzbekistan appoints new CEO

SEPT. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Unitel, a telecoms company based in Uzbekistan, appointed Dmitry Shukov, formerly head of Sistema Shyam Teleservices, the Indian branch of MTS, as its CEO. Unitel, which is owned by Amsterdam-based Vimpelcom, operates under the Beeline brand and has around 10m customers in Uzbekistan. VimpelCom’s owners are Russian magnate Mikheil Friedman and Norway’s Telenor.

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(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

Ukraine Air argues with Turkmenistan

SEPT. 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Ukraine International Airlines postponed the resumption of flights to Ashgabat due to an ongoing row between the two countries’ aviation authorities. Flights were suspended in August and were due to resume on Sept. 21. Ukraine is also locked in a row with the aviation authorities in Uzbekistan.

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(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

TeliaSonera companies reassure Kazakh, Uzbek, Azerbaijani customers

ALMATY, SEPT. 18-21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Shortly after Swedish telecoms TeliaSonera said last week it was leaving Central Asia and the South Caucasus, its local brands were quickly reassuring worried customers they were not quitting altogether.

Azercell, Geocell, Kcell, Tcell and Ucell, TeliaSonera’s assets in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, all issued statements saying they will continue to operate.

Rumours still swirled but they focused on who would takeover TeliaSonera’s assets. Turkcell, which through Fintur is already a stakeholder in Azercell, Geocell and Kcell, is favourite. TeliaSonera also owns a stake in Fintur.

“To explore our strategic options to acquire the remaining stake in Fintur, we have initiated the process to appoint a strategic and financial advisor,” Turkcell said.

Analysts had mixed reaction. Some said TeliaSonera’s assets would attract decent bids, others that the poor state of the Kazakh economy would undermine their value.

Alexander Vasiliyev, editor of the website Profit.kz said Kcell would be a good buy for a global telecoms company.

“It continues to lay golden eggs, it is the largest player in the Kazakh market,” he told Kapital.kz.

Aivar Baikenov, Head of Research at Asyl-Invest, disagreed. He singled out the drop in the value of the Kazakh tenge, down 40% in a year, as a major problem.

“Kazakhstan is not attractive for foreign investors due to the devaluing tenge. I suppose Kcell could be interesting for local or maybe Russian investors,” he said.

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(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)

BBC criticises Uzbek cotton

SEPT. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The BBC’s Uzbek language news said the authorities in Uzbekistan are forcing pensioners to pick cotton or face a 50% cut in their pension handout. Uzbekistan has previously faced Western criticism over its use of children to pick its cotton harvest. Cotton is a valuable cash crop for Uzbekistan.

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(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

Iran-Uzbekistan trade to increase

SEPT. 15 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Iranian ambassador in Tashkent, Ali Mardani Fard, told news agency RIA-Novosti it wanted to increase by three or four times its trade volumes with Uzbekistan. The statement, while vague on detail, underlines Iran’s potential impact on trade in the region with its re-emergence into the global economy.

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(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

TeliaSonera wants to quit Central Asia and the South Caucasus

ALMATY, SEPT. 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Dogged by various corruption allegations against its businesses in Central Asia, Swedish-based TeliaSonera said it wanted to quit the Eurasian telecoms market to focus on European operations.

In the medium-term, TeliaSonera’s assets in the growing mobile telecoms markets of Central Asia and South Caucasus region could represent an attractive business for companies looking to enter the market. TeliaSonera owns stakes in telecoms companies in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. These are Azercell, Geo-cell, KcellP, Tcell and Ucell.

In most of these countries, TeliaSonera has been under the spotlight for its opaque corporate governance, an issue that its CEO, Johan Dennelind, referenced.

“Thanks to two years of hard work to improve the Eurasian operations, not least from a corporate governance and sustainability perspective, we now have better and more well-managed companies which we believe others can successfully develop further,” a TeliaSonera press release quoted him as saying.

TeliaSonera appointed Mr Dennelind as CEO in 2013 after a corruption probe into its operations in Uzbekistan forced the previous CEO and most of the directors to resign.

In the past two years, Swedish prosecutors have opened investigations into alleged bribes that the company paid to secure access to mobile networks and licences in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. More recently, in May 2015, a Swedish newspaper reported on another possible case of bribery in Azerbaijan.

In 2013, TeliaSonera sacked Tero Kivisaari, a senior executive, for paying $350m a few years earlier to a Gibraltar company linked to Gulnara Karimova, daughter of Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov, in exchange for a 3G licence. TeliaSonera owns 94% of Ucell, an Uzbekistan-based, mobile operator.

A 2013 deal that saw Kcell, in which TeliaSonera owns a 62% stake, pay Kazakh PM Karim Massimov $200m for network access has also come under scrutiny.

Analysts said that the pressure had been building on TeliaSonera and that they had been expecting TeliaSonera to cut its losses in its Eurasia division for some time.

Bakytzhan Khochshanov, an analyst at Halyk Finance, said that he thought a Russian or Turkish telecoms company might be interested in buying TeliaSonera’s stakes.

“Potential buyers are likely to be the largest ones, and among them either Megafon or MTS, as Vimpelcom already has an exposure to Kazakhstan’s market with its Beeline brand,” he said.

“Among the other potential bidders could also be Turkish operators, with Turkcell already having a stake in Kcell through Fintur Holding.”

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(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

IMF raises Uzbek GDP growth

SEPT. 16 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The IMF increased its GDP growth forecast for Uzbekistan to 6.8% from an earlier estimate of 6.2% although it also raised its inflation forecast to over 10%. The increase in inflation will all but cancel out any real GDP growth increase in Uzbekistan this year.

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(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)

LG to handle Uzbekistan’s database

SEPT. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — LG CNS, a Korea-based global IT service provider and subsidiary of LG, signed an agreement with the Uzbek government to manage its various databases. The parties have created the joint venture, LG CNS Uzbekistan. CEO Kim Daehoon said he wanted to use the joint-venture to pursue more government-orientated projects in Central Asia.

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(News report from Issue No. 248, published on Sept. 18 2015)