SEPT. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a boost for Georgia’s tourist sector, privately-owned Turkish airline Borajet opened a new air route from Istanbul to the Georgian Black Sea resort town of Batumi. Borajet will fly to Batumi three times a week from Istanbul’s second airport. Turkish Airways already flies from Istanbul’s main airport to Batumi.
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
SEPT. 4 2015, ALMATY (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh government scrapped petrol price controls, another major admission that the market rather than the state is better placed to direct its economy.
Government officials blamed the volatility in foreign exchange markets for scrapping price controls on petrol which immediately jumped in price by around 40%.
Pressured by low oil prices, rising inflation and the depressed value of the Russian rouble, the Kazakh Central Bank released the tenge from its US dollar peg last month. It fell 23% in one day and is now trading at an all-time low of around 262/$1 which made petrol excessively cheap.
Deputy PM Bakhytzhan Sagintayev was handed the task of explaining the new policy to journalists.
“Having studied all possible options and discussed the issue with market players, we decided there should be a flexible pricing model given the ongoing volatility at the FX market,” he said. “The Government has decided to stop regulating prices for AI-92 and AI-93 petrol.”
In Almaty, Kazakhstan largest city, the effect was immediate. Queues snaked out of petrol stations as drivers rushed to fill their tanks.
Guldariya Iskakova, an accountant, summed up the feeling of people in Almaty about the petrol price rises. “It is awful. We are now seriously thinking to use public bus,” she said. “Our expenses have increased several times. The prices for petrol increased by 20 tenge in just one day.”
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(News report from Issue No. 247, published on Sept. 11 2015)
AUG. 31 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The owners of the Imedi TV channel in Georgia cancelled two popular talk shows, triggering accusations that they had bowed to pressure from the ruling Georgian Dream coalition. Opponents of Georgian Dream say that it is intimidating criticalmedia.
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(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
AUG. 29 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbek officials held a ceremony to mark the beginning of construction of a new tyre plant in the Angren special industrial zone, 90km outside of Tashkent. The total cost of the plant will be $230m. Uzkhimprom, the state-owned chemical industry holding, Uzavtoprom, the Uzbek car industry holding, and the two metallurgic complexes at Navoi and Almalyk will build the plant, the Trend News Agency reports.
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(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
AUG. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, will invest $700m in Kyrgyzstan’s gas infrastructure network, Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev told media. Gazprom owns Kyrgyzstan’s gas network and has been promising investment, although it has yet to deliver on these promises.
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(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
AUG. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In an interview with the state-run Turkish news agency Andalou, Afghan vice-president General Abdul Rashid Dostum said he believed the Islamic extremist group IS would target Azerbaijan and the South Caucasus. IS has been increasing its recruitment drive across Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
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(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
AUG. 31 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A significant increase in the cost of potatoes is upsetting locals in Yerevan, the Armenianow website reported. It said the price of potatoes had doubled over the past month. The government, though, has said the increase in prices is purely seasonal and will drop back down.
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(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
SEPT. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The security forces in Azerbaijan said they had detained five men for bring- ing arms into the country, planning various attacks and having links to the Islamic extremist group IS. Media reported that the five men had had links to IS in Syria and Iraq between 2013 and 2015.
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(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
SEPT. 1 2015, TBILISI (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili sacked his foreign minister in a cabinet reshuffle that once again promoted people close to his own political mentor, Bidzina Ivanishvili.
Giorgi Kvirikashvili was shifted to the foreign ministry from the economy ministry and Tbilisi’s deputy mayor Dimitri Kumsishvili took over the economy ministry brief. Both men had previously worked at Cartu Bank, Mr Ivanishavili’s private bank. Mr Garibashvili, the PM, also worked at Cartu Bank.
Opponents of PM Garibashvili said that he was just doing his master’s bidding by replacing Tamar Beruchashvili, who had disagreed with him publicly on some policies, as the foreign minister but he said the changes were linked to a shift in policy direction.
“The government focuses on economic development and employment. This should also determine our foreign policy,” he said .
Korneli Kakachia, a professor of political science at Tbilisi State University and director of the Georgian Institute of Politics, told The Bulletin that Mr Ivanishvili single-handedly decides what happens in government.
“Mr Ivanishvili only trusts insiders with whom he has worked. That is why Cartubank employees have a privileged position,” he said.
This is a widely held view. Earlier this year, the anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International said they were concerned that Mr Ivanishvili wanted to promote people who worked at Cartu Bank to prominent government positions.
“A pattern can be detected of individuals who were formerly employed by companies associated with Bidzina Ivanishvili being appointed to senior positions in the public service,” it said in April.
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(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
SEPT. 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia is likely to hold a referendum in either November or December on constitutional amendments that would transfer power from the president to parliament, a senior member of the ruling HHK group told media.
This is clearest indication yet that a referendum on a new constitution, which the main opposition parties have said is designed to keep President Serzh Sargsyan’s grip on power when he leaves the presidency in 2018, is more than likely this year.
Vahram Baghdasaryan, leader of the HHK group, said: “If not in November, then in the beginning of December.”
This important because of the potentially destabilising impact of a referendum. Widespread street protests against a proposed increase in electricity prices in June showed just had fragile Armenia had become. Now the main opposition groups have pledged to turn the referendum into a de facto vote of confidence in the government and Mr Sargsyan.
Under the current constitution, Mr Sargsyan has to leave the presidency after two consecutive terms. He has said that he will comply with this stipulation but he has also said that he wants to transform Armenia into a parliamentary democracy.
His opponents say that he just trying to organise a power grab from inside parliament and that he wants to continue to run the country.
Armenia’s parliament is currently debating the constitutional changes. The ruling HHK group has said it is prepared to offer concessions to some of Armenia’s disparate opposition groups on the constitutional reform package in exchange for support.
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(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)
