Tag Archives: Uzbekistan

Uzbek CBank denies it is restricting conversions

MAY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s Central Bank denied it was restricting access to US dollars as a form of controlling its currency.

Two days earlier, the Tashkent-based Uzmetronom.com website quoted unnamed but, supposedly, reliable sources as saying that the Central Bank had halted the process for foreign and local companies to convert their local currency into US dollars for an unspecified period of time.

This is critical for companies which are keen to get their cash out of the country. Not being allowed to convert it severely undermines their operations.

Now, though media have quoted the Uzbek Central Bank as saying that this is not true.

Like the other countries in Central Asia, Uzbekistan trying to cope with a drop in oil prices and a fall Russia’s economy which has rippled across the region.

Last week, media reported that a senior official in the Uzbek Central Bank had written a letter to his superiors to warn that the country was running out of cash and that it could hardly afford to pay for vital services and salaries.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 233, published on May 28 2015)

Uzbek mobile operator revenue increases

MAY 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Beeline, mobile operator VimpelCom’s brand in the former Soviet Union, said its revenue in Q1 had increased by 13% in Uzbekistan. It said that while its customer base had fallen by 1%, mobile data revenues had grown by 24%.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 232, published on May 20 2015)

Uzbek banks are running out of cash, says official

MAY 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbeks’ lack of confidence in the som has weakened Uzbekistan’s banks, reduced their capital and hit their ability to pay salaries and pensions.

This was the withering assessment of Ulugbek Mustafayev, a deputy chairman of Uzbekistan’s Central Bank, according to a report by the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

RFE/RL said it had seen a copy of a letter, dated April 10 and stamped “official use only” written by Mr Mustafayev to Uzbek PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

The letter gives a vital, and rare, insight into official Uzbek thinking on monetary policy. It’s virtually unheard of for a senior official to speak out against his or her bosses.

In the letter, Mr Mustafayev said a lack of confidence by the population in the som currency had pushed people into relying on the black market and US dollar payments over bank accounts. He said that this had created a shortfall in capital of more than 2 trillion som ($620m) and that state pensions and salaries to interior ministry officials, the defence ministry and other government workers were not being paid.

The regional financial crisis and the fall in the som/dollar exchange rate has reduced the population’s trust in the national currency and in financial institutions.

Most transactions in Uzbekistan are reportedly carried out in cash. Mr Mustafayev said that consumers had paid in far less than expected into Uzbek banks in the first quarter of the year.

The Uzbek system, already frail, is becoming weaker, Mr Mustafayev said in his letter.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 232, published on May 20 2015)

Uzbek foreign minister travelled to Brussels

MAY 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek foreign minister Suleymanmurad Guladov travelled to Brussels to meet EU officials, including Maros Sefcovi, the European Commission vice president in charge of energy policy. While no deals were signed, the meeting is a reminder of the growing relationship between Europe and Central Asia over energy.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 232, published on May 20 2015)

Uzbekistan boosts energy production

MAY 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan will increase oil and gas production by 9% in the next five years, Uzbekneftegaz the state oil and gas company, said. Media quoted Uzbekneftegaz representatives at a conference in Tashkent aimed at foreign investors.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 231, published on May 13 2015)

Uzbekistan to start gas refining

MAY 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Shokir Fayzullayev, head of Uzbekneftegaz, the Uzbek oil and gas company, said Uzbekistan intends to start an $18.65b investment project that will re-orientate its strategy for gas towards refining it rather than exporting it. Mr Fayzullayev said Uzbekistan wanted to add more value to its gas production.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 231, published on May 13 2015)

Uzbek cinemas show film based on Andijan killings

MAY 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek cinemas are showing a slickly made feature-length film which appears designed to project the government’s version of events in the town of Andijan 10 years ago when soldiers killed hundreds of people.

The 2-1/2 hour long film, called Sotqin and made by the government backed UzFilm studios, tells the story of two disenchanted brothers from a provincial town.

With the help of a foreign spy and agitators linked to Western non-governmental organisations they become increasingly religious and are persuaded to launch an attack on government buildings with a group of Islamic extremists.

Human rights groups have accused the Uzbek government of using the film, released in March, as a propaganda tool.

“It [the Uzbek government] wants to provide its own narrative — a quite strident, assertive narrative that Andijan for us is closed and any violence that was committed — or any harm that was done — was done by outsiders, not by us,” Steve Swerdlow, Central Asia programme director at the New York-based Human Rights Watch, told the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Uzbekistan has always disputed the widely-accepted Western version of the Andijan killings of May 13 2005. It has said that 187 people died in Anijan and that most were armed Islamic extremists. Human rights groups said that the death toll was far higher and that those killed were unarmed civilians.

The killings in Andijan triggered an international outcry. Uzbekistan was seen as a pariah state and was shunned by the West. This changed, though, over the past few years because NATO has needed Uzbekistan to help it withdraw its military kit from Afghanistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 231, published on May 13 2015)

Uzbek President says wants to sell stakes in state companies

MAY 8 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In what could be a potential game-changer for Uzbekistan, President Islam Karimov has ordered the government to sell stakes in 68 large companies to strategic foreign investors.

Media quoted a presidential decree which said that stakes in companies such
as Navoiazot, a cement maker, and Turonbank would be up for sale.

“It is time to carry out a full-scale critical analysis of the availability and effectiveness of the presence of state shares in the economy, in other words, ‘the state’s presence in the economy’, and on this basis, to define our actions for a significant increase in the private sector’s presence in the economy,” media quoted Mr Karimov as saying.

It’s unclear from the decree and the media coverage who this apparent relaxation of state controls over Uzbek industry and commerce is actually aimed at.

Western business has generally had a strained relationship with Uzbekistan. There have been a number of instances where Western companies — generally metals companies — have accused Uzbekistan of grabbing their assets.

Instead, Uzbekistan may be thinking of Chinese companies, which have been making in-roads over the past few years, or even businesses from South Korea and India.

Uzbekistan’s economy, like other countries in the region has been struggling to cope with a downturn in global energy prices and a sharp fall in the performance of the Russian economy. Remittances from Russia have dropped considerably.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 231, published on May 13 2015)

Uzbekistan launches metering project

MAY 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – KT, the second largest South Korean mobile network, said that it had won a $110m contract to build an advanced electricity metering system. The project is in partnership with the Asian Development Bank. The plan is to install 1m metres in Uzbekistan’s three biggest cities by 2017.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 231, published on May 13 2015)

Uzbekistan keeps interest rates stable

APRIL 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s Central Bank said it would keep its key interest rate at 9% because the economy was set to hit its inflation target. In January the Central Bank raised its interest rate by 1%. Uzbekistan’s main currency exchange exists on the black market but the statement gives insight into the Central Bank.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)