JAN. 17 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkish police captured the main suspect, an Uzbek national called Abdulkadir Masharipov, behind a New Year’s eve attack on an Istanbul nightclub that killed 39 people. Masharipov has, reportedly, already confessed to the killings. The Turkish authorities said that he had received training from the IS radical militant group.
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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)
JAN. 16 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s National Security Council dropped the threat level of a major terrorist attack from yellow. The Security Committee did not give a reason for dropping the threat from moderate. It was raised to moderate or yellow in June and extended in August. Kazakhstan had always intended to drop the threat level in January.
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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)
ALMATY, JAN. 18 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Car manufacturing in Kazakhstan fell by around a third in 2016 to 8,397, dragged down by a stagnant economy.
The disappointing data, released by the Kazakh state statistics committee, is even more stark when laid alongside earlier, pre-economic downturn aspirations. In 2013, with oil prices hovering above $100/barrel, double today’s prices, and with domestic consumer demand buoyant, foreign carmakers were lining up to cut deals with local producers to get their models into the market.
Back then, industry officials were predicting that Kazakhstan would produce over 50,000 cars in 2014.
The economic downturn been so devastating on Kazakhstan’s industrial base, that the government has said that it will step in and subsidise the car industry.
Kazakhstan’s Auto Business Association said that official car dealers’ sales sharply dropped in 2016 to 46,712 cars from 97,469 in 2015.
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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)
JAN. 18 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan increased investment in its agriculture sector by 50%, in US dollar terms, in 2016, media reported quoting a senior official at KazAgroFinance. Tuleugazy Seisenovm described as general manager of Assets of the Inspection Department at the state-owned KazAgroFinance, said that the government had spent $686m on investments in agriculture this year compared to $446m in 2015. Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev has ordered his officials to diversify investment away from the dominating oil and gas sector.
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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)
JAN. 17 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Gulf Air, the national carrier of Bahrain, said it will start up a three- times a week service to Tbilisi. The move is just the latest announcement from an international airline to connect with Tbilisi. In December Qatar said it would fly to Tbilisi four times per week. Passenger numbers at Tbilisi airport have increased by 50% from 2010. It is building a new arrivals terminal to deal with the larger passenger flow.
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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)
JAN. 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Inflation data from Armenia’s national statistics office showed prices dropped in 2016 by an average of 1.1%, media reported. The largest fall was in food prices which fell 3.3%. Service prices rose by 1.1%. Deflation has been stalking Armenia for sometime, indicating an economic slowdown.
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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)
JAN. 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Yerevan’s Zvartnots International Airport reported passenger growth of 10.4% in 2016 compared to 2015, media reported. It said that just over 2.1m people had used Armenia’s main airport without giving a reason for the rise.
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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)f
JAN. 20 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — There is a sense of deja vu hanging over Kazakhstan.
In the west of the country, hundreds of oil workers are on a hunger strike over the closure of the country’s trade union umbrella body. In Astana the hollowing out of the media continues with the trial of Bigeldy Gabdullin, editor of the Central Asia Monitor newspaper, while police arrest government officials for corruption and for leaking state secrets.
All these events are the result of deliberate government policies.
Let’s take the oil workers’ strike first. Reports from Zhanaozen say that an estimated 400 workers are now on hunger strike. They worry that while the government says that it wants to improve their rights and working conditions, they are actually being undermined. The government is determined to exact revenge on the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Kazakhstan for what it sees as its role in organising and politicising oil workers in 2011. Strikes, then, ended with a riot in Zhanaozen and the shooting dead of at least 16 oil workers by police.
The Kazakh authorities see the unions as a threat to central government and a court in Shymkent earlier this year ordered the closure of the Confederation
for allegedly not being registered properly several years ago. Suspecting a government stitch up, the workers have chosen to strike.
As for Gabdullin, he has apparently already admitted extortion of government officials. The charges may be true or they may be fabricated, it’s difficult to say in Kazakhstan where fact and fiction melt into one. Either way, the 61- year-old Gabdullin appears to have decided that it would be best to admit wrong doing and hope for clemency rather than try to defend himself against the state.
The Kazakh government has worked tirelessly to undermine journalists over the past few years, locking up high profile free-thinkers or forcing them into exile. The case against Gabdullin is a continuation of this policy.
And finally, the rounding up of various government officials for corruption.
This may be, as presented, a case of clearing out corrupt officials but it may also be the case, as some analysts are saying, that Nazarbayev is using the cover of an anti-government purge to wipe away potential troublemakers before he reveals his succession plan.
In all three arenas — workers’ rights, the media, central government — the Kazakh government is extending and deepening its authority.
By James Kilner, Editor, The Conway Bulletin
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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)
JAN. 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Steppe Cement, the London-listed Kazakhstan-based cement producer, posted full year results which showed a 4% drop in production and a 4% fall in prices because of a fall in demand. Steppe Cement’s main market is Kazakhstan which has been struggling to maintain economic output because of a drop in oil and gas prices, a recession in Russia and fall in the value of the tenge. Steppe Cement said it was going to focus on maintaining prices over market share in 2017.
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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)
JAN. 19 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Talks between Russia and Tajikistan over restarting air-links, vital for Tajikistan’s remittance-dependent economy, will resume on Jan. 26, media reported. Both countries cut air-links in December after a row. Without the vital air-link to Moscow and other major Russian cities, young Tajik men will not be able to travel to Russia, the source of most of the remittance cash.
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(News report from Issue No. 313, published on Jan. 20 2017)
