DEC. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Ruslan Smykov, a presenter with the Kazakh TV news channel First Channel Eurasia, resigned after he broadcast a fake news interview with a Russian TV host. It’s unclear why Mr Smykov broadcast the fake interview but the incident does highlight the weak editorial control in the Kazakh media.
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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)
DEC. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in the United States sentenced Irfan Demirtas, reported to be a joint Dutch and Turkish national, to seven years in prison for raising funds for the radical group Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). Demirtas was arrested in Germany last year and extradited to the US. The IMU is considered a terrorist group and has been fighting US-led forces in Afghanistan. It was formed in the 1990s in Uzbekistan and has previously targeted Tashkent with bombs.
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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)
BISHKEK, DEC. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyz plans to export 4,000 donkeys to China have angered animal rights protesters who have said that the animals are transported in inhumane conditions and are often killed for gelatin extracted from their skins which is then used in traditional Chinese medicine.
The BBC reported that Chinese importers bought the donkeys from a village near Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan for an estimated 3,000-4,000 soms ($43-57) per donkey.
China is a major importer of donkeys. It sources many from Africa.
The donkeys are often used to work the land but are also butchered for their skins. Chinese medicine producers want the gelatin from the donkeys’ skins.
A couple of years ago, donkey meat was discarded in Kyrgyzstan, after hundreds of donkeys had been killed and skinned.
Animal rights activists want the export of donkeys to China to be stopped or at least regulated. Business leaders in the region though said that the donkey trade had become a profitable export for poor farmers.
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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)
DEC. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Georgia arrested two businessmen for using an alleged pyramid scheme to steal $25m. A court said that Tamaz Lobhzanidze and Merab Peradze had used the company Ltd Georgia to persuade hundreds of small investors to give them loans of between $15,000 and $100,000. They promised dividends of 33% and initially paid out before stopping the flow of cash. Mr Lobhzanidze and Mr Peradze deny the charges.
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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)
DEC. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rezidor Hotel Group, which operates the Radisson brand of hotels, said that it planned to open a 100-room Radisson Red hotel in Tbilisi by 2019. Radisson Red, only released this year, is the Rezidor’s mid-range offering, pitched slightly below the Radisson Blue brand but above Park Inn. It’s another indication that the Georgian economy is picking up slightly.
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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)f
DEC. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — It’s been a good couple of weeks for inter-governmental banks’ Central Asia and South Caucasus portfolios. They have lent heavily in the region, supporting infrastructure projects from gas pipelines in Azerbaijan to solar and wind power projects in Kazakhstan.
It’s a win-win situation. The institutional banks want to lend the money that their shareholders – nation states – and their constitutions require. Demand may be a better way of putting it.
For Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, the funds are a welcome source of cash at a time of economic constraint. Their economies are under huge pressure at the moment from the sustained low oil prices. Azerbaijan’s GDP has shrunk this year and Kazakhstan’s is stagnant.
They were once attractive options to lend to for commercial banks looking for decent exposure in Emerging Markets. Now they would find it difficult to raise the cash without paying prohibitively expensive interest rates.
That’s where the loans from intergovernmental banks come in. They are cheap and chunky.
The latest round of loans came with the involvement for the first time of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
This it the China-based bank that was set up on Christmas day last year but only started operations in January this year. It has now invested $600m in a loan to Azerbaijan’s Southern Gas Corridor company which is helping to build the TANAP gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Europe.
The AIIB has put down a major marker, then, and potentially set itself up as a challenger to the traditionally West-based intergovernmental banks that have previously dominated.
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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)
DEC. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev unveiled a new monument in Astana to mark the 25th anniversary of independence from the Soviet Union. He ignored the fifth anniversary of the shooting dead of at least 15 people by police during riots in the western city of Zhanaozen.
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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)
DEC. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan is being considered as a neutral territory to hold peace talks between Syrian rebels and pro-government forces, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said. Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev wants Kazakhstan to play the role of global peace- maker and has previously said that Syrian peace talks could be held in Astana or Almaty. Kazakhstan has previously held two rounds of Syrian peace talks.
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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)
DEC. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Qatar Airways said that it was starting up a new four-times-per- week direct flight between Doha and Tbilisi. Qatar already flies direct from Doha to both Yerevan and Baku. Linking Tbilisi directly to the Qatar Airways network is important as it should increase Tbilisi’s ability to pull in international investment and tourism.
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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)
DEC. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Land has been an emotional issue in Kazakhstan.
In the spring, Kazakhstan saw some of its biggest ever protests with thousands of people demonstrating over plans to give foreigners more rights to land. The protests worried the government and also drew attention to existing laws which granted 1kmsq of free land to every Kazakh. Land is cheap in Kazakhstan, the ninth largest country in the world with a population of just 17m.
Since then hundreds of thousands of people have applied to receive their free slice of Kazakh steppe. This is rough land with no infrastructure, exposed to some of the harshest weather conditions south of the Arctic.
Faced with a sharp economic downturn, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has been eager to please. He’s promised to build the infrastructure needed to make the land liveable. The problem is the Kazakh government doesn’t have much money.
Instead, the Kazakh government wants to attract private investment. Primarily, it aims to encourage private construction companies to stimulate construction with affordable loans and to trigger a house-buying boom by subsidising mortgages.
The new government program is called Nurly Zher, which means Bright Land in Kazakh.
Economy minister Kuandyk Bishimbayev has said that the government expects GDP to increase by 7.7% during the whole period of the programme and create annually 25,000 jobs.
But experts are doubtful. Kazakhstan needs comprehensive structural economic reforms rather than government handouts.
Representatives from business and the economy say people can’t even afford subsidised mortgages. Commercial banks are also wary of handing out mortgages. A 50% devaluation of the tenge has triggered a lack of confidence. Bad debt levels are approaching danger levels. This is coupled to a lack of political will. Ministers usually implement government programmes initiated by the President but rarely initiate something of their own. The price of failure would be too great. The unwillingness to dig deep into problems and concentrate only on surface issues is typical of the Kazakh government and reflect a political stagnation .
By Aigerim Toleukhanova, the Bulletin’s Almaty correspondent
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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)
