MAY 6 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Uzbekistan has increased the price of electricity it charges its citizens by 7.4%, media reported, the second price rise in the last six months. Prices for basic utilities in Uzbekistan have been rising steadily.
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(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)
MAY 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Relations between Georgia and Armenia threatened to sour after the speaker of the Armenian parliament, Galust Sahakyan, met a delegation from the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia in Nagorno- Karabakh.
Initially, Mr Sahakyan’s meeting with South Ossetian official Anatoly Bibilov, who was in Nagrono-Karabakh to monitor local elections, appeared to suggest some degree of official Armenian support for the rebel government. Tbilisi was incensed.
Georgia and Russia fought a brief war in 2008 over South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Russia and a handful of crony states which want to curry support from the Kremlin — think Pacific Island states looking for aid handouts — have recognised their independence although Georgia still says it wants to reclaim the regions.
Georgia’s government called in Armenia’s ambassador to Tbilisi to explain Mr Sahakyan’s actions and later Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili spoke to Armenian PM Hovik Abrahamyan to avoid a diplomatic incident.
An Armenian government spokesman later said: “The meeting between Galust Sahakyan and Anatoly Bibilov was purely of private nature. No official issues were discussed whatsoever. A meeting between private individuals has nothing to do with political positions.”
The statement concluded by confirming Armenia’s support for Georgia’s claim over South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
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(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)
APRIL 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Revenue at Kazmunaigas EP, the London-listed unit of Kazakhstan’s state energy company, fell by 47% last year because of the collapse in oil prices, it said at its annual results. Importantly, too, salaries increased by 10% at Kazmunaigas after last year’s devaluation of the Kazakh tenge.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)
APRIL 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The United States will give Uzbekistan boats and vehicles to counter the drugs trade, media reported quoting its embassy in Tashkent.
The extra military kit, worth $6.2m, will irritate human rights campaigners. They say that Uzbekistan is one of the world’s worst human rights abusers. The US says it has to deal with Uzbekistan because Realpolitik demands it.
The US is withdrawing its military kit from Afghanistan mainly through Uzbekistan.
It has already said that it will leave behind surplus kit that it deems non-lethal. These are vehicles, trucks, body armour and night vision goggles.
“The goal of this Project is to assist law enforcement agencies of the Republic of Uzbekistan to develop investigative leads for disrupting and dismantling major drug trafficking organisations involved in illicit trade of drugs, psychotropic substances and their precursors,” the US embassy in Tashkent said on its website.
As well as hitting the drugs trade, the US may also be planning to quietly help Uzbekistan bolster its border defences against incursions from the Taliban.
Central Asian states have said that they are worried about the spread north of the Taliban once NATO quits Afghanistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)
MAY 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Vafa Guluzade, a senior Azerbaijani diplomat, died aged 74 in Baku. He helped shape Azerbaijani foreign policy in the early 1990s after independence from the Soviet Union and was Azerbaijan’s chief negotiator with Armenia for a peace deal on Nagorno-Karabakh.
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(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)
APRIL 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Vladimir Shkolnik, Kazakhstan’s energy minister, said the Caspian Sea oil project Kashagan would resume pumping oil in December 2016. This estimation is a few weeks earlier than Western energy companies linked to the project have suggested. Oil from Kashagan was suspended in 2013.
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(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)
APRIL 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Dominoes Pizza, arguably the most recognisable pizza brand in the world, opened its first store in Tbilisi on April 26, the company said in a statement. US fast food chains have been piling into Georgia.
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(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)
MAY 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Nurzhan Subkhanberdin resigned as director of Kazkommertsbank after selling a 7.2% stake in the bank, one of the largest in Kazakhstan, to Kenes Rakishev, the son-in-law of the Kazakh defence minister.
Although Mr Subkhanberdin still owns 37.8% of Kazkommertsbank his ousting from the board effectively completes the takeover of Kazkommertsbank by businessmen
loyal to President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Earlier this year Mr Subkhanberdin was replaced as chairman of Kazkommertsbank, a position he had held since setting it up in 1991.
The London-based Mr Subkhanberdin was viewed with suspicion. He had openly sup- ported opponents of Mr Nazarbayev in the early 2000s.
Last year, Kazkommertsbank had been cajoled into a merger with BTA Bank, which the government rescued from bankruptcy in 2009. The merger imposed BTA Bank’s large portfolio of bad loans onto Kazkommertsbank, hitting its profits. In 2014, Kazkommertsbank said on April 30, profit dropped by 55%.
The deal is another major boon for Mr Rakishev too. He now owns 23.34% of the bank.
Mr Rakishev, 35, is closely linked to the Kazakh elite. Analysts have said the Kazakh elite use Mr Rakishev to buy companies and to hold shares in businesses.
He is married to the daughter of the minister of defence Imangali Tasmagambetov, one of President Nazarbayev’s closest associates.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)
APRIL 30 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Malaysia’s state energy company Petronas completed the $2.25b buyout of the Statoil’s assets in Azerbaijan, making it one of the biggest players on the Azerbaijani oil and gas scene.
The deal included a 15.5% stake in the Shah Deniz gas project, a 15.5% stake in the South Caucasus Pipeline Company and a 12.4% stake in the Azerbaijan Gas Supply Company.
Importantly, too, Azerbaijan’s state oil and gas company SOCAR took over operational control of the South Caucasus Pipeline Company which pumps gas from the Shah Deniz project, across Georgia to Turkey. From there it links up to the Turkish gas pipeline network.
Statoil surprised analysts last October when it agreed the deal. At the time it said that it wanted to reduce the proportion of investment in its portfolio in favour of higher value projects.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)
MAY 5 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – In a rare trip to the EU, Turkmen president Kurbanguly Bedymukhamedov flew to Italy to meet Italian PM Matteo Renzi. A Turkmen government statement said he discussed energy security and bilateral relations at the meeting. The EU is hoping to secure gas deliveries from Turkmenistan.
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 230, published on May 6 2015)
