Category Archives: Central Asia & South Caucasus News

Georgia’s President vetoes bill

MAY 31 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s President Giorgi Margvelashvili vetoed a bill to change procedures in and the composition of the country’s Constitutional Court, sending back to Parliament the controversial draft law. MPs from the ruling Georgian Dream party said they will not seek to override the veto and will amend the bill to accommodate the demands of the opposition. Critics of the amendments to Constitutional Court had complained that the changes were designed to give the government more power. Mr Margvelashvili has previously blocked legislation put forward by the Georgian Dream coalition government, of which he is a member.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 283, published on June 3 2016)

Subsistence level rises in Kazakhstan

JUNE 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The minimum subsistence level in Kazakhstan increased by 0.5% in May, indicating that inflation and slower economic growth have hit people’s livelihoods. The Statistics Committee said Kazakhs need a minimum of 20,630 tenge ($61) to survive. This is 8.5% higher than in May last year but is still slower than annualised inflation of 16.7%.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 283, published on June 3 2016)

Azerbaijan’s minister urges AZAL to pay depts

MAY 31 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s ministry of finance urged AZAL, the national airline, to start paying back its debts and cut costs. Finance minister Samir Sharifov said that in order to buy new aircrafts AZAL has accumulated over 650m manat ($450m) in state-guaranteed loans, which could become a burden to the state budget if AZAL becomes insolvent. Several state-owned and private companies in Azerbaijan have increased their borrowings as an economic downturn hits profits.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 283, published on June 3 2016)

Kazakhstan’s stock lists Magnum’s bond

MAY 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — KASE, Kazakhstan’s stock exchange, said it listed 10-year bonds issued by Magnum Cash & Carry, a chain of discount stores in Kazakhstan. The total issue amounted to 33b tenge (around $100m), one-third of the amount that Magnum plans to issue in the short term to finance its expansion in the country. In May 2014, Kenes Rakishev, son-in-law of Kazakhstan’s defence minister and closely-linked to the elite, bought a minority share in the company.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 283, published on June 3 2016)

Georgian breakaway region hosts football tournament for unrecognised states

MAY 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia is hosting a football tournament for regions which are not recognised as countries, a move that some critics have said is provocative.

The 10-day tournament will centre on Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia which lies on the Black Sea coast.

Only a handful of countries, including Russia, have recognised Abkhazia as an independent state. Abkhazia and South Ossetia split from Georgia in the early 1990s after the break-up of the Soviet Union, and declared full independence after a Georgia-Russia war in 2008.

And it’s an eclectic bunch of 12 ethnic groups, pseudo-states, wannabe-countries and historical-throwbacks that are competing at the so-called alternative World Cup.

Teams playing in the tournament include Raetia, a former province of the Roman Empire in central Europe, Iraqi Kurdistan and Somaliland.

Abkhazia, which opened with a 9-0 win over the Chagos Islands, is one of the favourites.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 283, published on June 3 2016)

KazKom buys back bonds

JUNE 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazkommertsbank, Kazakhstan’s largest lender, said it had bought back part of its outstanding bonds, spending around $35m in total. In May, CEO Kenes Rakishev had said the bank was ready to repurchase as much as $500m in outstanding bonds. After the latest transaction, KazKom has to pay back around $522m from two bond issues due later this year and €392m ($437m) due in February 2017.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 283, published on June 3 2016)

Georgia’s city develops

MAY 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — House in Alley, a local development company, said it will build a new hotel in Batumi, a resort town on Georgia’s Black Sea coast. The company said the new hotel, which will cost 18m lari ($8.4m), will hold 105 rooms. The new hotel is part of the government-supported project to improve the area around the Heroes Alley in central Batumi. Batumi is Georgia’s top resort town.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)

Rakhmon tightens grip over Tajikistan

DUSHANBE, MAY 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon can now rule over Tajikistan for his entire life after people voted in a referendum to scrap limits on presidential terms.

The referendum also lowered the age that a person can run for president to 30 from 35, potentially allowing Mr Rakhmon’s son to run for office in 2020 if he was needed, and also banned political parties linked to a religion. The main opposition party in Tajikistan had been the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan until it was outlawed last year and its leaders chased into exile or arrested.

At its core, the referendum gives Mr Rakhmon almost total control over Tajikistan.

Officially, the Central Elections Committee said that turnout was 92% and that 96.6% of people had voted for the changes.

But while, at least openly, few people in Tajikistan are prepared to express any dissatisfaction with Mr Rakhmon, some were critical of the referendum.

Malika, a 52-year-old teacher, said people had voted for the changes because they think that Mr Rakhmon is a guarantor of peace and stability.

“It’s simple and depressing. People do not want war and accept whatever the government does. We all saw how our people died,” she said referring to a civil war in the mid-1990s. “We just want stability and do not care who runs the country and for how long.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)

Turkmenistan to import S Korean buses

MAY 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmenistan will import South Korea-made passenger buses, in an effort to boost economic cooperation. President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and Kim Wee- Chul, CEO Hyundai Engineering, signed the agreement in Ashgabat. In 2013, Hyundai Engineering had completed construction work at a processing plant near Galkynysh, the largest gas field in the country.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)

Kazakh electricity company eyes up CASA-1000

MAY 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — KEGOC, a state-owned electricity distributor in Kazakhstan, said it would be open to exporting electricity to Afghanistan and Pakistan through the CASA-1000 line. The CASA-1000 project is scheduled for completion by 2020.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 282, published on May 27 2016)