MAY 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan plans to increase gold production by up to 30% between 2015 and 2019, the Azerbaijani news agency Trend quoted a government source as saying. Gold is a major source of foreign currency for the Uzbek government.
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(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)
MAY 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan has increased the price of electricity it charges its citizens by 7.4%, media reported, the second price rise in the last six months. Prices for basic utilities in Uzbekistan have been rising steadily.
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(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)
APRIL 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The United States will give Uzbekistan boats and vehicles to counter the drugs trade, media reported quoting its embassy in Tashkent.
The extra military kit, worth $6.2m, will irritate human rights campaigners. They say that Uzbekistan is one of the world’s worst human rights abusers. The US says it has to deal with Uzbekistan because Realpolitik demands it.
The US is withdrawing its military kit from Afghanistan mainly through Uzbekistan.
It has already said that it will leave behind surplus kit that it deems non-lethal. These are vehicles, trucks, body armour and night vision goggles.
“The goal of this Project is to assist law enforcement agencies of the Republic of Uzbekistan to develop investigative leads for disrupting and dismantling major drug trafficking organisations involved in illicit trade of drugs, psychotropic substances and their precursors,” the US embassy in Tashkent said on its website.
As well as hitting the drugs trade, the US may also be planning to quietly help Uzbekistan bolster its border defences against incursions from the Taliban.
Central Asian states have said that they are worried about the spread north of the Taliban once NATO quits Afghanistan.
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)
APRIL 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Reacting to the traditional start of the fighting season in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan ordered its Border Guards service to beef up its numbers along its southern border, Russian news agencies reported. Central Asian states are worried about the creep north of the Taliban.
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(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)
APRIL 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A parliamentary delegation from Kuwait visited Uzbekistan to discuss boosting ties. Kuwait wants to win a non-permanent seat at the UN Security Council in 2018-19.
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(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)
APRIL 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan’s prosecutor-general Rashid Qodirov has resigned unexpectedly, media reported. Mr Qodirov was made famous for ordering the arrest last year of Gulnara Krimova, eldest daughter of president Islam Karimov, for various economic crimes.
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(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)
APRIL 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan has made plans to deal with a sustained slump in demand from Russia for its cars, media reported quoting an Uzbek government source.
It said that sales would remain relatively low for its cars until 2019.
This is important because demand from Russia is the main driver of Uzbek car production. This is centred on the GM Uzbekistan plant in Andijan, east Uzbekistan.
GM Uzbekistan, which is 25% owned by US carmaker GM and 75% owned by the Uzbek government, recorded a 38% slump in car sales to Russia in 2014. It also recorded a slump of around 60% in the first quarter of the year, according to reports.
News agencies said sales to Russia between January and March were 5,411 cars from GM Uzbekistan compared to 12,858 in 2014.
Like other countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, Uzbekistan is strug- gling to cope with the severe economic collapse over the past few months, triggered by a collapse in oil prices and sanctions on Russia. The Russian economy is a vital engine for the wider regional economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 229, published on April 29 2015)
APRIL 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – On a visit to Seoul, Uzbekistan’s military signed deals with its South Korean counterparts aimed at deepening cooperation. South Korea’s influence in Central Asia, where it has large diasporas, is an important issue to monitor.
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(News report from Issue No. 228, published on April 22 2015)
APRIL 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The New York-based Human Rights Watch said Uzbekistan may be lining up an extension to the prison sentence handed out to Uzbek activist Azam Farmonov. It said Farmonov had been due for release in a few days, after nearly a decade in jail on extortion charges, but that he has instead been moved to a punishment cell.
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(News report from Issue No. 228, published on April 22 2015)
APRIL 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan has built a 22,000km barb wire fence along its borders with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, media reported, highlighting the often strained border issues in Central Asia.
AKIpress, a Bishkek-based news agency, said that most of the barb was erected along the border with Uzbekistan.
Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have a long-standing quarrel over borders and over the last few years there has been an increase in the number of incidents between the two neighbours along their shared border. These could be locals wandering into no-go areas, or a stand-off between soldiers. The tensest area is around the city of Osh in south Kyrgyzstan, which is part of the Fergana Valley in Uzbekistan.
The borders of Central Asia are complex. Historians have said that Soviet officials deliberately drew the borders to divide people.
Analysts have also said that tension over borders is one of Central Asia’s most serious flashpoints.
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(News report from Issue No. 228, published on April 22 2015)