SEPT. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – At an art exhibition in Paris, a reporter challenged Mehriban Aliyeva, wife of Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev, on whether she thought Azerbaijan was really a free country. The exchange was a rare challenge to the Aliyevs who has been accused of cracking down on free speech.
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The signs have been there for all to see for the past two or three years. Now there can be no denying it. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev appears to want to set his daughter, Dariga Nazarbayeva, up as his successor.
Her rehabilitation into the mainstream of Kazakh politics has been carefully managed. First she won back a seat in the 2012 parliamentary elections, then in 2014 she appeared next to her father after his State-of-the-Nation speech and then she started to take over increasingly important roles, including deputy speaker of parliament.
More recently, Mr Nazarbayev has spoken about the Asian model of democracy. This was, it now appears, code for managed dynastic succession.
Kazakhstan needs stability at the moment. It is moving through difficult economic territory and it needs strong, talented, leadership.
But it also needs choice.
Ms Nazarbayeva, who has sung opera at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, certainly has the charisma, authority and the most famous surname in Kazakhstan, but is she the right person to lead Kazakhstan in the post-Nursultan era?
Infamously in 2013, at a parliamentary committee meeting, she described disabled children as freaks birthed by teenagers having sex too young. She sounded out of touch with ordinary people and drew heavy criticism.
There are other candidates, but Ms Nazarbayeva does now appear to be in pole position. What is certain is that the succession issue in Kazakhstan is, once again, at the forefront of the country’s politics.
By James Kilner, Editor, The Conway Bulletin
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — French railway company Alstom has started producing 50 freight locomotive trains for Azerbaijan, media reported. The contract, signed in 2014, is worth around 300m euros. Alstom’s new AZ8A electric locomotives will be built specifically for Azerbaijan.
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – China agreed to buy $470m worth of Tajik somoni, media reported, a currency swap designed to prop up Tajikistan’s weakening currency. The somoni has been losing value this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 8 2015, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s government said that it would increase salaries for teachers by 20-50% depending on their qualifications, another indication that the devaluation of the tenge is spurring inflation.
Announcing the pay rise at a school in Astana, deputy PM Berdybek Saparbayev said that it showed the government cared about its workers. “We have very good news for our teachers,” media quoted him as saying. “Salaries will be increased from 20 to 50% starting from 2016.”
The Kazakh Central Bank has devalued the tenge twice since February 2014.
It is now worth around 40% less than it was before the first devaluation and economists have been warning that inflation will shoot up.
Companies have already been raising salaries and it was only a matter of time before the government put up pay for its thousands of employees.
Other key workers, such as doctors and nurses, have also been promised large tenge pay rises.
The problem for the Kazakh government is that with oil prices low and production declining, it may struggle to pay or all the rises.
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 11 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh tenge and the Kyrgyz som dropped to record lows this week, as economies in Central Asia and the South Caucasus continued to show structural weaknesses.
By the end of Friday, the tenge traded at around 264/$1, down from 240/$1 at the start of the week. That’s a drop of 10%. The Kyrgyz som fared slightly better but still dropped through the 67/$1 barrier. A week earlier it had traded at around 65.5/$1.
Over the border in Tajikistan, the somoni held its own. This may have had something to do with a massive cash injection from China. It agreed to buy 3b yuan ($470m) worth of somoni in a so called currency swap deal. This is a thinly disguised mechanism to prop up the ailing somoni which has lost 17% of its value this year.
In the South Caucasus the currencies were broadly stable, although the Georgian lari lost some ground, falling to around 2.40/$1 compared with a price of around 2.36/$1 a week earlier.
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Belarusian dairy producer Turovsky Milk Factory exported its first batch of products to Kyrgyzstan, media reported quoting a company spokesman. The shipment is notable because it appears to suggest that, in this instance, the concept of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union trade bloc is working.
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Moody’s ratings agency downgraded three Kazakh banks due to their deteriorating asset quality and their exposure to foreign currency lending. Kazkommertsbank’s baseline credit assessment (BCA) was rated caa2, ATF Bank fell to caa3, and Eurasian Bank was downgraded to caa1. Moody’s also changed the outlook of the three Kazakh lenders, together with Halyk Bank, to negative, highlighting the precarious state of Kazakhstan’s banking sector.
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – US billionaire businessman Warren Buffett has pledged $50m for Kazakhstan’s new low-enriched uranium bank, media reported quoting The Economist. The concept behind the uranium bank is that it will be able to control the flow of lightly enriched uranium to countries for nuclear power stations.
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
TBILISI, SEPT. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s PM Irakli Garibashvili officially initiated construction of a factory near Tbilisi airport that will produce structural components for airplanes.
Last March, Israel’s Elbit Systems and Georgia’s Partnership Fund, a state-owned holding, set up a joint- venture called Aero-Structure Technologies to build the $85m plant.
“The fact that Elbit Systems is returning to Georgia means a lot to me personally and to the Georgian government, because this is an expression of confidence towards our government and our country,”
Mr Garibashvili said at the opening ceremony.
The plant will give Georgia’s tech industry a major boost as well as create 300 new jobs. It will open in 2017. A Georgian government press release said the plant’s production was aimed at the major aircraft manufacturers Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier and Sukhoi.
For Elbit, one of Israel’s biggest weapon’s manufacturers, the new factory marks a remarkable turn around in its business relationship with Georgia.
Elbit Systems had previously built and sold Hermes 450 reconnaissance drones in Georgia. In 2011, though, it fell out with the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili.
The government launched a $100m law suit against Elbit which it settled for $35m.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
