Category Archives: Central Asia & South Caucasus News

Sangtuda-1 rows with Tajikistan’s Barqi Tojik

JUNE 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The administration of the Sangtuda-1 hydropower plant said it will not pay taxes until Tajikistan’s power distribution company Barqi Tojik pays for its electricity supplies. The hydropower company, co-owned by Russian and Tajik state-companies, said Barqi Tojik has piled up a debt of 628m somoni ($79m). Barqi Tojik is one of the most indebted state-owned companies in Tajikistan.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Kazakh President orders $712m economic stimulus

ALMATY, JUNE 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — With economic activity in Kazakhstan faltering, President Nursultan Nazarbayev ordered his government to spend 240b tenge (around $712m) on supporting small and medium-sized companies as well as building thousands of new houses.

Mr Nazarbayev is under increasing pressure to shore up his support by boosting the economy against a 50% fall in the value of the tenge, rising unemployment and inflation. In April and May anti-government protests swept across the country in the most widespread anti-government challenge to Mr Nazarbayev’s 25-year rule.

The Presidential press service said the cash would come from the Republican budget, a phrase that Kazakh civil servants use to refer to Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Kazakhstan’s Kashagan to start production in October

JUNE 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s PM Karim Massimov said that Kashagan, the country’s largest oilfield will start production in October 2016. Mr Massimov challenged the consortium members – which include Exxon, Kazmunaigas, Total, Eni, Shell and Inpex – to meet the government’s production plans and resume production at the Caspian Sea field, which had briefly started pumping oil in 2013, before damaged pipes forced its closure.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Kyrgyzstan’s fund chief resigns

JUNE 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Almazbek Kadyrkulov, chairman of Kyrgyzstan’s State Property Management Fund quit abruptly after a year in the job. Mr Kadyrkulov did not explain his resignation but he had recently received harsh criticism from PM Sooronbay Jeenbekov and other MPs. The Fund is in charge of managing state assets.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

ECHR says Georgian prosecutors abused their power

JUNE 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The European Court of Human Rights said in a ruling that Georgian prosecutors abused their power during the pre-trial detention of Georgia’s ex-interior minister Vano Merabishvili in an effort to extract information regarding the unrelated trial against former President Mikhail Saakashvili. Merabishvili was arrested in May 2013 on charges of vote fraud and embezzlement of party funds. He said the charges were politically motivated.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Emigration in Kazakhstan increases

JUNE 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s Statistics Committee said that immigration into Kazakhstan decreased by 25%, while emigration out of the country increased by 16% in the first four months of the year, highlighting a rapid outward pressure for Kazakhstan’s population. Net outflow measured 3,521 people. It did not give a reason for the high outflow but it may be connected to the poor economic conditions.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Active Batumi builds 5-star hotel in Georgia

JUNE 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Active Batumi, a hotel and entertainment company, will build a new five-star hotel in Batumi, Georgia’s tourist hotspot by the end of the year. The new hotel will hold the Wyndham brand, which belongs to a US-based hotel and resorts chain. This would be the first Wyndham-branded hotel in Georgia. In Central Asia and the South Caucasus, the only two other Wyndham hotels are located in Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Tajikistan responds to EU

DUSHANBE, JUNE 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A group of Tajik academics launched a staunch defence of the government’s crackdown on the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) after the European Parliament passed a resolution criticising it.

The authorities in Tajikistan outlawed the IRPT last year. Last month a court handed the IRPT leaders several years in prison for attempting to organise a coup. In response to the prison sentences, the European Parliament said it was concerned about freedom of expression in Tajikistan.

Tajikistan’s foreign ministry responded by criticising Europe for double standards over terrorism and a group of academics released a statement blaming the IRPT for a civil war in the 1990s and saying that it controlled the European Parliament.

A Dushanbe-based analyst, though, said that like student protests which sprung up this year to promote the government, the authorities were influencing the academics.

“These letters of support are aimed at pleasing the authorities and promoting careers,” he said.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Turkmenistan becomes deputy chairman of UN General Assembly

JUNE 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The UN General Assembly unanimously voted to give Turkmenistan one of the 19 vice-chairs for its 71st session, due to start next September, a PR coup for Turkmenistan’s neutrality policy.

Turkmenistan had already served as vice-chair of the General Assembly in 2007, 2009, and 2013 and it was quick to laud the move as an accolade.

“This is a testament to the international prestige of the Turkmen state, the effectiveness of its foreign policy based on the principles of positive neutrality,” it said on one of its official news websites.

The country’s official neutral policy, though, may be weakening. Security worries in Afghanistan have pushed Turkmenistan. Its army organised a massive military exercise in March, the largest in Turkmenistan’s history.

A representative of Armenia was also elected to serve a deputy chair of the General Assembly.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Turkmenistan fails to pay salaries

JUNE 13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Employees of Turkmenistan’s state-owned oil and gas companies said they have not received salaries for months, the opposition Alternative News Turkmenistan website reported. Previous reports had said that state employees had not received salaries and had been forced to accept state bonds instead.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)