APRIL 2 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan will begin construction of a $214m tire production plant near Tashkent in August, media reported quoting the state’s chemical company Uzkimyosanoat. The development of the factory is part of scheme by Pres. Shavkat Mirziyoyev to expand Uzbekistan’s industrial base.
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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)
APRIL 3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev flew to Baku for talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev that focused on boosting trade between the two Caspian Sea allies. No treaties or deals were signed but people at the meeting said that there the rapport between the two men had been good, laying the foundations for stronger ties.
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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)
APRIL 6 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s somoni currency keeps on hitting all-time lows. The Central Bank has managed a fall in its value since 2014 that has seen its worth half to 8.23/$1. At the start of 2014, the somoni was valued at 4.77/$1.
But, the rate of the fall may actually be good news. In July last year the Central Bank published a gloomy assessment of the somoni’s outlook. It said that the somoni would fall by 21% in 2017 and by another 8% in 2018. Of course there is some way to go, but in the first three months of the year the Tajik somoni has fallen just over 4%. This means that if the current fate of depreciation is maintain, the somoni will come in slightly better than expected.
Like the rest of the region, Tajikistan’s economy has been hit hard by the recession in Russia, it is officially the most remittance- dependent country in the world and most of this comes from Russia. The EBRD and the ADB have offered to help Tajikistan but require reforms.
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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)
APRIL 3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s exports of refined oil products fell by 18.3% in the first quarter of 2017 compared to the year before to 286,000 tonnes, media reported quoting state- owned SOCAR. SOCAR didn’t give a reason for the drop but oil sales and refined oil products are a vital part of Azerbaijan’s economy and foreign earning power. Azerbaijan, like the rest of the region, is trying to recover from an economic slump.
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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)
DUSHANBE, MARCH 31 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Telia, the Swedish telecoms company, accused Tajikistan’s government of effectively blocking the $39m sale of mobile unit Tcell to the Aga Khan, an accusation that will undermine Western business confidence in the country.
The Tajik government’s anti- monopoly agency failed to respond to a request to approve the Tcell deal before a deadline set by Telia, forcing it to void the sale of its 60% stake in the company to the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development (AKFED).
In a statement, Emil Nilsson, head of the Eurasia region for Telia, said that the company had now written off the value of Tcell’s assets, which it put at $13m, although it was still looking for an alternative buyer.
“We have taken all relevant actions in trying to close the deal. The proposed buyer of our interest in Tcell, AKFED, is an established investor in the region with multiple companies in its current portfolio and a long history in Tcell,” he said. “We are now assessing alternative ownership solutions for Tcell.”
Neither the Tajik government nor the Aga Khan have commented.
Telia has been looking to sell its units in Central Asia and the South Caucasus after a corruption probe in 2012/3 discovered it had paid a bribe of several hundred million dollars five years earlier to Gulnara Karimova, daughter of Uzbekistan’s then president Islam Karimov, in exchange for market access. Karimov died last year and Ms Karimova has been under house arrest in Tashkent since 2014.
The corruption scandal tarnished Telia’s reputation in the region. Netherlands-based MTS and Norway’s Telenor were also mired in the bribe-paying controversy.
Afterwards, in a damming indictment for companies operating in the region, Telia said the business environment in Central Asia was too riddled through with corruption that reputational damage was inevitable. It was better, the company had concluded, to sell its stakes in Tcell, Kcell (Kazakhstan), Ucell (Uzbekistan), Azercell (Azerbaijan) and Geocell (Georgia) than to risk more reputational damage.
The Aga Khan already owned a 40% stake in Tcell and had agreed to buy Telia’s stake in September last year.
In January, though, Telia accused the Tajik government of trying to pressure it into paying an unmerited tax bill and in February it said it had asked the anti-monopoly unit for a meeting to discuss why it hadn’t yet approved the deal with the Aga Khan.
A Conway Bulletin correspondent in Dushanbe confirmed that the Tcell network was operating as normal.
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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)
MARCH 27 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov criticised Turkmenistan Airlines for what he said was the sluggish pace of development of its domestic air routes. In 2015, Mr Berdymukhamedov had ordered the airline to improve its domestic routes.
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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)
MARCH 29 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kariat Kelimbetov, the former Kazakh Central Bank chief who is now heading the development of the Astana International Finance Centre, has been appointed Kazakhstan’s representative on the board of directors at the Islamic Development Bank (IDB). The IDB’s main agenda is to promote projects which adhere to Sharia laws. Islamic finance is growing in popularity in Kazakhstan and the wider Central Asia region.
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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)
MARCH 30 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek president Shavkat Mirziyoyev has signed into law bills that soften sentences for some crimes and also cuts pre-trial detention times, state- run media reported. If the laws are upheld it will mark a victory for human rights activists who have long complained about Uzbekistan. Mr Mirziyoyev is trying to unwind some of the worst excesses of Islam Karimov’s rule.
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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)
MARCH 30 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s economy grew by 4.8% in the first two months of the year compared to the same period in 2016, Geostat said. It said that a rise in remittances, mainly from Russia, and an increase in exports had boosted economic growth. The Georgian economy has weathered the economic downturn that has hit the region since 2014 better than its neighbours.
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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)
APRIL 3 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — London-listed Georgia Healthcare Group said that it had finished the first phase of its redevelopment project on the Sunrise Hospital in Tbilisi and that it would partially re-opened this month. The 332-bed private hospital will be fully open by the end of the year. Georgia Healthcare Group is the largest private medical provider in Georgia. The redevelopment of the Sunrise Hospital is part of its plan to buy up and renovating underperforming hospitals.
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(News report from Issue No. 323, published on April 6 2017)
