Category Archives: Central Asia & South Caucasus News

Armenia joins China-led AIIB

MARCH 23 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia was one of 13 new members to be approved by the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). This was the first new intake of members at the AIIB since its inception in January 2016 and brings its total to 70. In the Central Asia/South Caucasus region, only Turkmenistan has declined to join the AIIB. The US, a non-member, sees the AIIB as an attempt by China to try to extend its influence.

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(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)f

Fruit exports to Kazakhstan to increase

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MARCH 24 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan is looking to boost the value of its fruit exports to Kazakhstan by 30% to $410m this year, media reported quoting Uzbekzokovaktovholding, the state- linked holding company. The 2017 target is an indication of the improved relations between Uzbekistan and its neighbours since Pres. Shavkat Mirziyoyev took over from Islam Karimov in September.

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(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)

Small fire damages Tajik parliament

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MARCH 18 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A small fire damaged the Tajik parliament building, media reported quoting interior ministry officials. They said that a computer overheating was to blame for the fire a parliamentary reception area. Photos from parliament showed two windows with black scorch marks. Nobody was injured in the fire.

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(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)

ABD demands reforms from Tajikistan

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MARCH 20 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has linked another $50m loan to Tajikistan to reforms that it said the government needs to make to 14 areas to improve economic conditions, mainly focused on protecting businesses from tax inspections and official pressure, media reported. Tajikistan’s economy is under pressure from a recession in Russia and it has been looking for handouts from international lenders.

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(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)

Georgian officials mull constitutional changes

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MARCH 18 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgian Parliamentary Chairman Irakli Kobakhidze told the Imedi TV channel that Georgia’s Constitutional Court was close to recommending a series of changes that would scrap direct elections for the president and also replace the complicated parliamentary election system with a simplified and transparent proportional representation system. Georgia has been tinkering with its post-Soviet Constitution over the past few years. In 2010, it shifted most power from the president to the PM.

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(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)

Armenian police arrest activist for smuggling missile

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YEREVAN, MARCH 22 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Armenia arrested influential opposition activist Samvel Babyan for allegedly smuggling a surface-to-air shoulder-launched missile into the country.

Mr Babyan’s supporters said that the accusations were absurd and that they were politically motivated. Two other men were also arrested with Mr Babyan.

The arrest comes just days before a tense parliamentary election in Armenia, the first under a new constitution that will shape Armenian politics for the next few years. Under constitutional amendments, power will shift from the president to parliament.

And Mr Babyan, a former defence minister in the Armenia-backed government of Nagorno-Karabakh, publicly supports the Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanyan bloc, named after three former government ministers who now lead the opposition to the ruling Republican Party.

They condemned his arrest.

“This behaviour exercised by the government is aimed at spreading the atmosphere of fear and affecting the results of the elections in an illegal way,” the Reuters news agency quoted their statement as saying.

Armenia’s security services said that the two men had been caught smuggling the missile in from Georgia, in order to deliver it to Mr Babyan. Although he has denied the charges, Mr Babyan’s reputation as a tough guy will mean that many ordinary Armenia’s will take the authorities’ view.

In 2000 he was sent to prison for 14 years for trying to assassinate a former leader of Nagorno-Karabakh. Released in 2004 he moved to Russia and only moved back to Armenia last year.

Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a war over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Only a UN negotiated peace deal in 1994 ended the fighting, although the peace remains shaky.

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(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)

No to privatising IBA, says Azerbaijani official

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MARCH 17 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijani officials said that it was too early to start privatising the International Bank of Azerbaijan, the country’s largest bank, going back on a pledge made at the end of last year. In an interview with Reuters, Rustam Tahirov, strategic services department head at Financial Market Supervision Agency, said that the government wasn’t able to reduce its 76.73% stake in IBA. It increased its stake from 55% at the start of the year, effectively propping up IBA during an economic downturn that has threatened to scupper the Azerbaijani banking sector.

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(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)

Currencies: Georgian lari, Azerbaijani manat

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MARCH 27 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a week of light trading and only incremental currency fluctuations, the Georgian lari performed strongest pushing up by 1.6% to 2.44/$1.

This is its highest level since the start of November last year and reflects a general strengthening of Georgia’s macro-economic scores.

Of the other currencies, only the Azerbaijani manat and the Uzbek som moved more than 1%. The manat continued its strong performance since February by moving up another 1.3% to 1.7050/$1, a five month high. Bloomberg described the manat as the strongest performing currency in the world this year. It also said, though, that ordinary Azerbaijanis still had little confidence in their currency after two devaluations in 2015 halved its value.

It said this lack of confidence showed through in Central Bank data which said 81.3% of bank deposits were now kept in US dollars, up from 79.6% at end-Dec.

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(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)

Kyrgyz court freezes media group’s bank accounts

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MARCH 22 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A court in Kyrgyzstan froze the bank accounts of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Kyrgyz service and the website Zanoza.kg, which are both facing libel charges from the government for allegedly defaming President Almazbek Atambayev. The two media units deny the charges and have said that, instead, they are victims of the Kyrgyz government’s increasingly vitriolic attack on the free media.

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(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)

Georgian capital forces street vendors to move into regulated markets

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TBILISI, MARCH 19 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Officials from the mayor’s office ejected street vendors from outside Tbilisi’s Marjanishvili Metro Station in a move designed to smarten up the centre of the city, reflecting its new emphasis on becoming a favourite for foreign tourists.

According to Georgian law, street trading is forbidden, although vendors – often poor old women or young girls wearing ragged clothes – sell everything from books to meat to flowers on pavements across the capital.

A lack of cleanliness and congested pavements forced the city government to act, Irakli Lekvinadze, the deputy major of Tbilisi, told media. He said he wanted the street vendors to move into the city’s markets.

“We are actively negotiating with representatives of the Association of Markets, which unites 17 markets in various districts of Tbilisi. Most of them expressed their readiness to accept street vendors and give them a preferential, six month period when they can work for free,” he was reported by media as saying.

Georgia signed an Association Agreement with the EU last year and has been working on improving the hygiene of its food products. Earlier this week the National Food Agency called on people not to buy food from unregulated trading places.

Evicted vendors, though, called the move unjust. One of them said that they will simply lose their meager livelihoods. “There are too many sellers in the entire country to regulate, there is not enough space in the bazaar for all of us,” she said.

It is not the first time that Georgian authorities have tried to regulate street vendors. There was a clamp- down on street trading in 2006. However, after protests, street vendors returned. Another clampdown also failed in 2010.

And some are sceptical that this ban will work.

“I have seen this before, street vendors always come back and find a way to sell their products,” said Teona, a 25 years-old Tbilisi resident, said.

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(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)