JULY 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Azerbaijan sentenced Fikret Faramazoglu, editor of theinvestgiative jam.az newspaper, to three months in jail for extortion. Jam.az reports on court cases involving government officials, with a focus on the national security department. Media lobby groups say the charges are false.
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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)
JULY 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s ministry of finance said the country’s debt had hit $4b, a level that parliament set in 2014 as the country’s debt ceiling. Foreign debt accounts for $3.7b of this amount. China’s Exim Bank, the World Bank’s International Development Association and the Asian Development Bank are among Kyrgyzstan’s largest creditors. Kyrgyzstan’s debt/GDP ratio has now surpassed 60%, a level that local politicians have said is worrying.
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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)
JULY 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The EBRD said it is about to unlock a $155m loan to Georgia’s fertiliser producer Rustavi Azot. The loan will be part of a $175m funding programme to modernise its production line and reduce the factory’s emissions. RustaviAzot, located 25km south of Tbilisi, employs around 2,000 workers and has an output capacity of up to 220,000 tonnes of ammonia per year. In March, the plant faced closure for failing to pay its gas bill.
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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)
JULY 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Dutch prosecutors asked a court in Amsterdam to confiscate €300m ($333m) from Gibraltar-registered Takilant, a company linked to Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of Uzbekistan’s president. Takilant allegedly received bribes in 2007/8 from Sweden’s Telia Company (then called TeliaSonera) and Russia’s VimpelCom to award mobile licenses in Uzbekistan. Dutch prosecutors asked the court to impose a €5m ($5.5) fine on Takilant and seize its 6% stake in Ucell, an Uzbek subsidiary of Telia Company. VimpelCom is registered in the Netherlands.
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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)
DUSHANBE, JULY 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan handed a $3.9bn contract to Italy’s Salini Impregilo to build the Rogun dam and hydroelectric power plant, a controversial project that sits at the heart of the country’s future energy production.
Salini Impregilo, Italy’s biggest construction company, said it had already received funding of $1.95b for the construction of a dam on the Vakhsh river, which will become the tallest in the world at 355m. A company spokesman said that work would start soon.
“The idea is to have two of the six turbines start producing energy for sale by 2018 in order to raise funding to complete the project,” the company said in a press release.
The Rogun dam project is controversial because it is opposed by down- stream Uzbekistan which worries that the complex will divert water away from its cotton fields. Environmentalists have also complained about the damage the dam will cause to the region’s lush valleys and human rights activists have exposed the forced eviction of thousands of people from the area.
Still, for Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon, the Rogun dam has become one of his pet projects. In 2011, he received a major boost when the World Bank endorsed it in two feasibility projects.
Around 70% of Tajikistan’s energy production comes from hydroelectric power stations. Once Rogun comes online, Tajikistan could become a hub for the region. It already plans to export electricity to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Salini Impregilo has built 250 dams worldwide and in August 2015 it won a $575m contract to build the Nenskra hydropower plant in Georgia.
The company said it will build six power stations atRogun, with a total capacity of 3,600MW, roughly equivalent to Tajikistan’s current capacity.
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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)
JULY 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Canadian miner Centerra Gold has struck a $1.1b deal with US-based Thompson Creek to buy a majority stake in the company. Centerra’s core asset is the Kumtor gold mine in eastern Kyrgyzstan. The move could be seen as an effort towards diversification as Thompson Creek owns mines in North America. The Kyrgyz government’s representatives on the Centerra board voted against the deal with Thompson Creek.
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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)
JULY 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom will seek $5b in compensation at the international arbitration court in Stockholm from Turkmenistan for what it has said was the illegal and unilateral termination of a gas supply contract, sources told the Kommersant newspaper. Turkmenistan and Gazprom rowed in 2014 and 2015 over prices for Turkmen gas imports to Russia.
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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)
JULY 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s Central Bank approved the sale of the local subsidiary of Britain’s Royal Bank of Scotland to Russian lender Expobank, owned by Igor Kim. The deal had been announced in June. Earlier this year, Mr Kim bought RBS’s Russian subsidiary. The sale of RBS is considered important for Kazakhstan’s ailing banking sector.
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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)
JULY 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh police reported thatTair Kaldybayev, found guilty of defamation by a court in Almaty in May, committed suicide in his prison cell. Kaldybayev, a businessman, was accused of having funded a smear campaign against Kazkommertsbank in 2014, which appeared on the Nakanune.kz website. The website director, journalist Guzyal Baidalinova was sentenced for libel.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)
TBILISI, JULY 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — After two years of preparations, Georgia formally entered into an Association Agreement with the EU, a deal touted by its political leaders as another step towards EU membership and one which should also make it easier for Georgian companies to sell products to Europe.
Georgian PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili hailed the adoption of the Association Agreement as one of the most important days in the government’s stated mission of easing Georgia’s visa arrangements with the EU and even becoming an EU member state.
“It cements Georgia’s relations with a partner which, for years, has been our model and end destination”, he said in a press conference.
In a statement, the European Commission’s foreign affairs representative, Federica Mogherini, said the agreement will bring Georgia benefits but reforms were needed before more EU integration was possible.
“The EU is looking forward to further strengthening its cooperation with a country that is still working on crucial reforms in areas such as the rule of law, the accountability rules for public decision-makers and transparency,” she said.
At its core, the EU Association Agreement improves Georgian companies’ access to European markets in exchange for a commitment to improve the rule of law, health and safety standards and democracy.
The EU said that the benefits to Georgia are already being felt. It said that Georgian kiwis, blueberries, nuts, garlic and wine are more readily available in Europe.
On the streets of Tbilisi, most people welcomed further integration with the EU but were unaware of the details of the deal. Even those who had studied it said that it would take time for Georgian companies to get the most out of the agreement.
“The majority of Georgian companies are not ready to start exporting to the EU countries in terms of qualities and certificates,” said Ioseb Kobakhidze, managing director of Georgian Herbs, a dried fruit producer.
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(News report from Issue No. 288, published on July 8 2016)
