JULY 17 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia’s parliament passed a final reading of a bill that strips supervision of the country’s commercial banking sector from the Central Bank. The World Bank had urged the government to drop the bill. President Giorgi Margvelashvili now has to sign the bill into law although he has said he may veto it.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia began gearing up to host the European Youth Olympic Festival in Tbilisi between July 26 and Aug. 1, one of the biggest sporting events it has hosted. Around 3,500 young athletes will compete for medals in a number of sports.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
TBILISI, JULY 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian state regulators approved a price increase for electricity, a rise that will irritate consumers and also the power companies who said the rise was not enough to cover the cost of production.
Electricity prices have become a major political issue across Central Asia and the South Caucasus because falling local currencies have forced up the cost of imports needed to fuel power stations.
In Armenia, thousands of people have protested for weeks about a sharp increase in electricity prices.
Perhaps mindful of the political fallout, Georgia’s regulators tried to limit price increases. The price rises appear to vary enormously between 2% and 30% depending on consumers’ overall annual use.
Zurab Gelenidze, CFO of Georgian Industrial Group, said the price rises were not enough. “The sustainability of the entire system will become questionable,” he told media.
Also reacting to the price rises, PM Irakli Garibashvili said the government would give out subsidies to some lower income families.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Uzbekistan’s PM, said GDP grew by 8.1% in the first half of 2015, compared to 2014. Given the secretive nature of the country, Uzbekistan’s official statistics have to be treated with skepticism.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Air Astana, the Kazakh airline part-owned by Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund Samruk Kazyna and BAE Systems, said that profit was $8.3m in the first half of the year compared to a $36.5m loss in the same period in 2014. The main driver of the increased profit was the cheaper price of jet fuel.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – A court in Tajikistan jailed Jaloliddin Mahmudov, a senior official in the opposition Islamic Renaissance party, for illegally handling weapons, media reported. Opposition groups in Tajikistan have said that they are being unfairly targeted by the authorities.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 21 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – BISHKEK – Kyrgyzstan downgraded bilateral relations with the US because of an award the State Department gave to an imprisoned ethnic Uzbek human rights defender last week, media reported.
Relations between the US and Kyrgyzstan have been worsening since the US military withdrew from an air base outside Bishkek last year. Since then, Kyrgyzstan has drifted towards Russia, joining its Eurasian Economic Union and adopting laws on foreign-funded NGOs and homosexuals which the US has said infringes civil liberties.
The award was given by the US State Department to Azimzhan Askarov. He was imprisoned in the south of Kyrgyzstan in 2010 after ethnic fighting killed nearly 400 people in the city of Osh. His supporters said that the charges, inciting violence, had been fabricated.
After Askarov’s son travelled to Washington to pick up the award, Kyrgyz PM Temir Sariyev signed a decree denouncing relations, which will come into effect on Aug. 20. The move will mean tax breaks awarded to US companies will be cancelled.
On the streets of Bishkek, reaction was mixed. Some people welcomed the tough stance by Mr Sariyev, others were cautious.
“In a couple of years, we will become a colony of Russia,” said a 30-year-old resident of Bishkek. “It is indeed bad that we are losing such assistance because Kyrgyzstan is a poor country.”
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – General Motor’s subsidiary, GM Uzbekistan, and Uzavtosanoat said they will build a second car plant in Uzbekistan, according to Ruslan Batyrov, head of media at Uzavtosanoat. The two companies already own a car plant near Andijan, eastern Uzbekistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
TBILISI/Georgia, JULY 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — US fast-food chain Wendy’s has just opened its sixth restaurant in Georgia, Dunkin’ Donuts its eighth. Despite a general economic downturn, the fast-food scene in Georgia has exploded over the past year or so.
The lone McDonald’s in central Tbilisi had since the 1990s been the only US fast-food restaurant in the country. Now locals can choose between Wendy’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, Burger King, KFC, Subway and Domino’s Pizza.
And Georgians, whose culture hinges around long meals with friends and family, have turned the fast-food sector into a social scene of their own.
The fast food restaurants in Tbilisi are often filled with women dressed in high heels and their best dresses, men in buttoned-up shirts, young children in their Sunday clothes and teenagers sporting the latest fashion.
“We come here every Saturday,” Nitsa, 13, said as she started to tuck into her burger at a Wendy’s restaurant in central Tbilisi. “We like the food a lot, but we also just love to sit here and talk for hours.”
Families come for a day out and young couples for a romantic dinner. Most are also looking for a change from Georgian food.
Tamuna Mosidze, who was pregnant, had another reason for choosing to eat in one of McDonald’s fast-food restaurants.
“It’s the best service in town and you know the ingredients are quality,” she said.
And the US fast-food restaurants appear to have noticed this distinctive Georgian feel about their restaurants.
Sophie Chogovadze, head Marketing Wendy’s and Dunkin Donuts, said: “We wanted to make it about the experience, to make it more than just tasty food.”
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
JULY 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s foreign minister Rashid Meredov will travel to Afghanistan for talks with his Uzbek counterpart, media reported. Turkmenistan has become increasingly worried about the build up of Taliban forces on its borders. It also has an interest in stability in Afghanistan because of the proposed TAPI pipeline that will pump gas to Pakistan and India.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 241, published on July 23 2015)
