SEPT. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — KazTransGaz Aimak, a subsidiary of Kazakhstan’s state-owned gas transit system, said it plans to issue Eurobonds for 5b tenge ($18.6m) to refinance its outstanding debt. KazTransGas Aimak, which controls the gas distribution system in the Almaty region, has an outstanding bonds issue of 8.6b tenge ($31.9m) maturing in December 2018.
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(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)
SEPT. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Most Kyrgyz migrant workers will not be able vote in the parliamentary election because they have failed to submit biometric data to the authorities before the deadline. The Zamandash opposition party told RFE/RL that only around 10,000 out of 700,000 Kyrgyz living in Russia will vote in the Oct. 4 election.
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(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)
SEPT. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan Potash Corporation, an Australia-listed mineral exploration company focused on Kazakhstan and Australia, said its assets had been overvalued by $302m in its half-year report. Mining companies operating in Central Asia have come under pressure to devalue their assets as local currencies have lost value.
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(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)
SEPT. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Georgian Central Bank is one of the more open central banks in the region. It holds scheduled meeting and posts reasonably detailed explanations on its monetary policy decisions.
In short it can give people interested in Central Asia and the South Caucasus something of an insider’s view of things. This makes its statement on Sept. 23 that accompanied an interest rate rise all the more important.
And the Georgian Central Bank was blunt in its assessment of the problems facing the wider region.
“Real GDP growth in the second quarter was consistent with the forecasts,” it said. “The factor hindering growth is the external sector, which, given the dire economic situation in the region negatively affects export of goods and services.”
Of course the Georgian Central Bank was talking about poor GDP growth in Georgia but the more important word in this statement for the wider region was “dire”. The Georgian Central Bank had said what other government economists from Tajikistan to Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan and Armenia have been thinking but shying away from saying. The prospects for their economies, with inflation rising and the values of their currencies falling, is dire.
Of course there are differences between the various regional economies – Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are heavily dependent on oil and gas sales, for example, while Georgia isn’t – but many of the pressures are shared ones and if one Central Bank, in this case the Georgian one, starts describing the situation as “dire” it is important to listen.
By James Kilner, Editor, The Conway Bulletin
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(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)
SEPT. 24 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia-backed authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh accused Azerbaijan of shelling a civilian area and killing three women. The accusation marks a heightening of tension around the disputed region. Violence is a feature of the region but civilian deaths are not common.
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(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)
SEPT. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Agricultural projects outnumbered any other sector for applications to a $1b Russian-Kyrgyz development fund for small and medium enterprises in Kyrgyzstan. The data highlights Kyrgyzstan’s predominantly agricultural economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)
SEPT. 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russian mining company Polymetal offered Sumeru Gold $300m for its 50% stake in the Kyzyl gold project in Kazakhstan. Sumeru Gold is linked to Timur Kulibayev, a high profile Kazakh businessman and son- in-law of Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The deal will mean Sumeru Gold also gives up its 7.4% share in Polymetal.
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(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)
SEPT. 23 2015, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s Central Bank raised its key interest rate for the fifth time this year to dampen accelerating inflation.
At 7%, Georgia’s interest rate is at its highest level since December 2011. At the start of this year, Georgia’s key interest rate measured 4%.
“The monetary policy decision is based on the macroeconomic forecast, which indicates a sharp increase in the inflation expectations given the Lari depreciation against the US dollar, which raises the future risks as a result of a one-time deviation from the inflation target,” The Georgian Central Bank said in a statement.
Georgia’s lari currency has lost 37% of its value over the past year, much like other currencies in the region, and the Central Bank said that this had been a key driver for inflation which now measured around 5.4%, moving towards the top of its 5-6% target range.
It also said that the economic situation in the region was “dire” and that demand would stay weak.
“Domestic demand is also weak, as a result of both the decline in remittances and the increase in the service burden of foreign currency denominated loans,” the Bank said.
On the streets of Tbilisi, though, the economic pain was evident.
“I get my salary in lari, but I pay my mortgage in dollar. Instead of 800 we now have to pay 1200 Lari. How are we supposed to buy food?” said university administrator Anita, 37.
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(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)
SEPT. 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kazakh authorities have launched an investigation into the drowning of four soldiers last week during an amphibious exercise on the Caspian Sea shore, media reported. Kazakhstan has pledged to improve and modernise its military. Like other armies in the former Soviet Union, allegations of corruption and bullying plague its armed forces.
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(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)
SEPT. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Fourteen parties will appear on the ballot for voters in Kyrgyzstan to elect from on Oct. 4, yet from social media to taxi chatter, the complaint is of a lack of genuine choice. The menu contains the familiar set of several dozen politicians, from several parties that sound all too similar.
What the complainers ask for may be too much, one might say. The uninspiring choice may actually be the only thing that contemporary democracy can offer. Politicians seek reelection, parties try to cater to as wide a spectrum of voters as possible, and none of them accept the risks involved in running on sharply defined and innovative policy platforms.
But wait. Even by the modest standards of latter-day democracy, Kyrgyzstan may be scoring too low.
That 75% of sitting deputies are seeking reelection may be normal, but it cannot be normal when an enormous number of them are on tickets of new parties, often very different from their original parties.
There is a tendency in Kyrgyz politics for the protagonists to swap parties regularly and for new parties to emerge, confusing the electorate and cementing the feeling that the election is more about personalities than policies and issues.
None of the parties has seriously criticised President Almazbek Atambayev. No party is anything close to pro-Western or critical of Kyrgyzstan’s over-reliance on Russia. All are happy about the Eurasian Economic Union.
All are anti-corruption, pro- government-efficiency, pro- national-unity and a list of other goods, with no detail on how to attain them.
In an election which, thus, seems to be all about personalities, all the main parties are parading decidedly mixed lists of candidates. Popular politicians next to infamous ex- officials; progressives next to conservatives; wealthy business owners next to underpaid teachers; law enforcement leaders next to those with criminal past; young candidates next to old.
Thus, the voters are facing a long ballot with little variety and more than a bit of confusion.
Lacking genuine choice, they are left to vote either for the President’s Social Democratic party, to keep things the same, or for a party linked to their clan or family.
These growing pains – if this is what they can be called – are not good signals for a more democratic Kyrgyzstan.
By Emil Dzhuraev, Lecturer in politics at the American University of Central Asia, Bishkek
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(News report from Issue No. 249, published on Sept. 25 2015)
