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Georgian lari surfs through a turbulent period of highs and lows

JAN. 20 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Don’t be fooled by the parity rating on the percentage change for the Georgian lari.

This is a turbulent time for the Georgian currency. The graph on the right shows its recent spikes.

Just before Christmas it bottomed-out at an all time low against the US dollar of 2.81/$1. It has recovered since then, with the help of Central Bank intervention – it sold $40m on Dec. 20 totalling $280m in 2016 – but it is still working at a level that is 30% below its high of 212/$1 in June 2016.

Government ministers have blamed an overly strong US dollar for the lari woes but Georgia’s own macroeconomic data has shown up weaknesses which may be undermining confidence in it.

The Central Bank had been happy to let its currency slide. This laissez faire attitude appears to have abated now though and there have been warnings that interest rates will start to rise as the battle hardens to boost the currency. 2017 will be another turbulent year for the lari.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Uzbek investigators interview Gulnara Karimova

JAN. 14 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek prosecutors interviewed Gulnara Karimova at her home in Tashkent, where she is under house arrest, about money laundering, media in Switzerland reported by quoting her lawyer.

This is the first news of Ms Karimova since her father, former Uzbek president Islam Karimov, died in September. In November a report surfaced on opposition news website that she had been poisoned.

The German-language business newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung published an interview with Ms Karimova’s lawyer, Gregoire Mangeat, who said that he had flown to Tashkent for the interviews held on Dec. 9/10.

He said that she was in good health but had been under pressure from the two state prosecutors to admit to various crimes.

“She was very combative and showed an amazing resistance to the arbitrary situation,” he said. “She bravely endured the confrontation with the three Uzbek prosecutors in military uniform. Twice, however, she burst into tears.”

Mr Mangeat also said that Ms Karimova’s living conditions were inhumane and designed to make her crack.

“My client is held in a small annex of her former house in the centre of Tashkent. The rest of the house has decayed,” her said. “Gulnara Karimova is completely isolated.”

Ms Karimova had been viewed as a potential successor to her father but in February 2014, as prosecutors from Europe and the United States started investigating telecoms companies who had paid her bribes worth hundreds of millions of dollars for access to the Uzbek market, she was placed under house arrest. Since then, very little has been heard of the once self-style fashion diva, pop star, roaming ambassador and business leader.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Ex-security chief in Turkmenistan dies in jail

JAN. 17 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tirkish Tyrmyev, the former head of Turkmenistan’s National Security Committee, has died in prison, the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. RFE/RL said that Tyrmev had been sent to prison in 2002 for abuse of power. It also said that shortly before he was due to be released in 2012, a court extended his sentence by seven years for apparently attacking a prison guard. Turkmenistan is one of the most secretive country’s in the world and has a poor human rights record.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Kazakh police arrest deputy head of pres. administration

ALMATY, JAN. 16 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The authorities in Kazakhstan continued their purge of top tier officials with the arrest of Baglan Mailybayev, the deputy head of the Presidential Administration, for stealing state secrets.

The arrest of both Mr Mailybayev, 41, who had been deputy head of President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s administration since 2011, and another senior official, follow the arrest of a former head of the National Security Committee on similar charges in December.

A former economy minister and a handful of senior executives at a state-run company have also been arrested for corruption.

Analysts said Mr Nazarbayev may be trying to clean out his administration of people he thought were under-performing.

Dosym Satpayev, director of the Risk Assessment Group, said: “To me, the president is showing frustration with young politicians who have made some serious mistakes in their new positions.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Azerbaijan wants to increase hazelnut growth

JAN. 18 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan wants to nearly triple the size of the area it has growing hazelnuts, media reported quoting officials. Azerbaijan’s economy has shrunk this year because of its over-dependence on oil and gas exports. The government has now said that it wants to diversify the economy and part of this process is to push agriculture.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Azerbaijan’s court jails activist

JAN. 16 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Azerbaijan sentenced Elgiz Gahraman, a 31-year-old opposition youth activist, to 5-1/2 years in prison for drug-related offences. The New York- based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that in August 2016 Gahraman had been taken by police to a station in Baku, beaten and forced to sign a confession that he had been carrying heroin and intended to sell it. HRW has accused the Azerbaijani authorities of using bogus charges to imprison people it considers to be troublemakers.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Azerbaijan wants to buy Russian weapons

JAN. 19 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev said that he wants to buy weapons from Russia. Azerbaijan has become a major weapons buyer over the last few years. It is still officially at war with Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorno- Karabakh.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Uzbekistan’s Denis beats Novak

JAN. 19 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin pulled off one of the biggest upsets in international tennis when he beat world no. 2 Novak Djokovic 3-2 in the second round of the Australian Open. Istomin is ranked at 117 in the world.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Turkmen president sacks energy minister

JAN. 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov fired Ashirguly Begliyev as head of the state-run Turkmengaz and replaced him with his deputy, Maksat Babayev. No reason was given for the sacking, although Mr Berdymukhamedov likes to rotate his key officials, possibly to ensure that noone builds up enough powerful enough to be able to challenge him.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)

Kazakhstan delivers wheat to Vietnam

JAN. 19 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan delivered its first batch of wheat to Vietnam via train to a Chinese port and then by cargo ship to Ho Chi Minh city on Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, media reported quoting a Kazakh railway executive. The importance of the opening up of this route is the successful use of the Kazakhstan- China railway which can effectively link Kazakhstan to East Asia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)