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Kazakhstan to cut wheat harvest area

FEB. 14 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan will reduce the area it uses to grow wheat over the next few years, although it will maintain its current crop because of improvements in efficiency, the blackseagrain.net website reported by quoting the Kazakh deputy agriculture minister Kayrat Aytuganov. Wheat has become an increasingly important part of the Kazakh economy. “We must collect larger volumes of quality grain from smaller areas. New markets are opening for exports of exactly Kazakh produce,” Mr Aytuganov said.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)

Currencies: Kazakh tenge

FEB. 17 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh tenge continued to strengthen throughout the week, hitting 318.4/$1 at the close of play on Thursday. This is its highest level since December 2015 and represents nearly a 5% increase in its value in 2017.

Analysts have said that the tenge closely follows the Russian rouble, which has been strengthening throughout the year to 58.5/$1, a level not seen since mid-2015. The rising price of oil and stability around Ukraine and Crimea have helped to strengthen the rouble.

Kazakhstan’s economy, like the rest of the region, is closely linked to Russia’s. The free-float of the tenge in 2015 has allowed it to track the rouble more closely.

With this in mind, analysts have said that they expect a further strengthening of the tenge as it catches up with the rouble. Some have said that it’s not unreasonable to anticipate a value below 300/$1 for the tenge by the end of the year.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)

Kazakh court charges ex-economy minister with corruption

ALMATY, FEB. 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a major blow to Kazakhstan’s image as a business-friendly country, prosecutors charged former economy minister Kuandyk Bishimbayev with stealing 1b tenge ($3.1m) from a project to build a glass sheet factory.

Mr Bishimbayev, previously seen as one of a group of high-flying members of a new generation of Western-educated Kazakh bureaucrats, is the highest-profile official to be arrested in a crackdown on corruption linked to Baiterek Holding. Baiterek owns stakes in businesses on behalf of the Kazakh government. Before being made economy minister in May 2016,Mr Bishimbayev had been head of Baiterek. He was sacked on Dec.28 2016 and later arrested.

Prosecutors said the 36-year-oldMr Bishimbayev, who had studied at George Washington University under a scheme paid for by the Kazakh government, had received $2m from the scam in theKyzlorda region of southern Kazakhstan.

“Funds were stolen through an affiliated company called Metal Plant Construction under the guise of payment for meals and accommodation of workers,” the anti-corruption office said in a statement.

Metal Plant Construction had supposedly been contracted by OrdaGlass and Shymkenthimmontazh.

For Kazakhstan, the bribe-taking scandal around Baiterek and OrdaGlass is doubly embarrassing as the factory had been touted as proof that cutting-edge factories could operate effectively in Kazakhstan.

Stewart Engineering, a US-based company, had been contracted to help build the glass plant. It has not been linked to the corruption charges. Construction work was started in 2015 but has slowed and the plant has still not been built.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)

KAZ Minerals starts sulphide production

FEB. 14 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — London-listed KAZ Minerals, formerly known as Kazakhmys, has started sulphide production at its Atokay mine in Kazakhstan, the mining-journal.com website reported. It said that production was in-line with expectations and that output would be ramped up throughout the year. KAZ Minerals is best known for its copper production.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)f

Kazakhstan to spend $74m on cyber security

ALMATY, FEB. 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh Finance ministry said it will spend 23.9b tenge ($74.2m) reinforcing its cyber security in a programme it has dubbed CyberGuard, although government critics have said that monitoring opposition activists rather than Islamic terrorists is the main aim of the project.

The project was ordered by Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev who identified in his annual state-of-the-nation speech on Jan. 30 lax cyber security as a problem in fighting Islamic extremists.

Beibut Atamkulov, head of the CyberGuardprogramme, said that progress on the programme had been swift.

“There is a centralised system of communication management called digital border,” he told the media. “We have created security certificates which will allow us to restrict access to illegal information that is encrypted within the borders of our country.”

Experts said this certificate will increase government control over what citizens are sending, receiving and reading on the internet.

Arman Abdrasilov, an Astana- based cyber expert, told The Bulletin that Kazakhstan was copying Russia.

“This is the path Russia has passed along, saying it needed this to tackle terrorism and therefore justifying access to private conversations. We have simply copied the Russian experience,” he said.

Amnesty International human rights group released a report on Feb. 9 on the crackdown of dissenters in social media. The report said the so-called “national security certificate allows the authorities to scan communications sent over the HTTPS protocol, and block access to individual webpages.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)

More jobs needed in Tajikistan, says World Bank

FEB. 14 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan desperately needs to create more and better jobs if its economy is going to grow at a sustained rate, the World Bank said in a new report. In its report, the World Bank said that only 43% of Tajiks of working age were in the job market. Remittances sent home from workers, mainly in Russia, is the biggest generator of GDP growth for Tajikistan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)

Uzbekistan requests extradition for Karimov nephew

FEB. 15 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan has put in an extradition request with the authorities in Ukraine for Akbar Abdullaev, the nephew of Islam Karimov, local media reported. Abdullaev was arrested by Ukrainian authorities when he flew into Ukraine in mid-January. Uzbek prosecutors have accused him of money laundering. Critics of the government have accused it of trying to silence the Karimovs, who ruled Uzbekistan for 25 years until his death in September. Gulnara Karimova, his daughter, is under house arrest. Mr Abdullaev is the son of Karimov’s wife’s sister.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)

UNM protesters march in Georgian capital

FEB. 14 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Georgia detained 13 people during a rally organised by the United National Movement party (UNM), the party of the exiled former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili. The demonstration, outside the city hall, was attended by 100 people and had been called to voice support for the Rustavi-2 TV station which they accuse the government of trying to control.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)

Passenger numbers are rising, says private Kazakh airline

FEB. 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — SCAT, a privately-owned airline based in Shymkent in south Kazakhstan, increased its passenger numbers to 1.269m in 2016 up from 1.229m in 2015, media reported. The slight increase in passenger numbers, though, may mask a drop in relative demand, in-line with the poor economic conditions, because SCAT has increased the number of flights and routes it flies. SCAT mainly flies domestic routes, although it is adding more foreign destinations. In 2013, a SCAT plane crashed near Almaty killing 21 passengers and crew.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)

Biathlon team cleared of drug-taking, says Kazakh minister

FEB. 14 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s culture and sports minister, Arystanbek Mukhamediuly, said that the biathlon team had been cleared of taking any performance enhancing drugs ahead of the World Championships in Austria. Austrian police raided the team’s hotel last week on the eve of the competition after, media reported, finding an empty box with discarded medical equipment.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)