FEB. 20 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia’s economic activity index, considered a key barometer of the economy’s health, was 6.5% higher in January compared to a year earlier. A 12% rise in industrial production was the biggest driver of the economic boost. Importantly, though, agricultural output was largely flat.
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(News report from Issue No. 318, published on Feb.24 2017)
FEB. 18 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Looking to facilitate Iran-Azerbaijan trade, Iranian justice minister, Mostafa Pourmohammadi told journalists in Baku that he wanted to set up a joint arbitration court. Relations between the two neighbours has been improving steadily over the past few years and both sides have said that they want businesses to follow their lead and bilateral trade to increase.
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(News report from Issue No. 318, published on Feb.24 2017)
FEB. 14 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Continuing his outreach to neighbours, Uzbek president Shavkat Mirziyoyev said that he would also visit Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev in the first half of 2017. The potential emergence of Uzbekistan as an economic powerhouse in Central Asia under Mr Mirziyoyev, who took over from the presidency after Islam Karimov died in September, may challenge Kazakhstan’s dominance.
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(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)
FEB. 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev sacked his powerful and long-serving minister of transport, Ziya Mammadov, continuing a purge of his top officials that stretches back to 2015.
In a presidential decree, Mr Aliyev announced that he was disbanding the current transport ministry from where Mr Mammadov has built up a web of political patronage and abusiness empire worth millions of dollars. In its place Mr Aliyev created a new transport and telecoms ministry headed by Ramin Guluzade, 40, head of the communications and IT ministry since January 2016.
The abrupt dismissal, given without an explanation, marks a heavy fall from grace for Mr Mammadov, considered one of the most powerful government ministers and a confident of Mr Aliyev.
His son,Anur Mammadov, ran most of his businesses and had been lined up to partner with Donald Trump in a hotel venture in Baku until December whenMr Trump pulled out of the deal.
Neither Mr Aliyev nor Mr Mammadov have commented on the dismissal and the merger of the transport and telecoms ministries.
In 2015, Mr Aliyev also sacked two other long-time ministers,
Eldar Mahmudov and Ali Abbasov. They were never charged with corruption but days after they were dismissed from the security and telecoms ministries, police arrested several high-ranking officials for bribe-taking.
Mr Mammadov and his son have always cut controversial figures. As well as being linked to US President Trump, rumours of money laundering, corruption and links to the Iranian military, contacts still not allowed for US companies under sanctions, have dogged them.
Journalists based in Baku have said that the Mammadovs’ business empire is based on contracts awarded to their construction companies by the transport ministry.
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(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)
FEB. 13 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan handed out over 36,700 work permits to foreigners last year, data from the PM’s website showed, an increase from 32,000 in 2015. China dominates with 12,699 permits, down from 13,373 in 2015. The issue of Chinese labourers working on energy and infrastructure projects part-funded by China is sensitive as ordinary Kazakhs accuse them of taking their jobs and receiving preferential treatment. After China, Turkish citizen received the second largest number of work permits in 2016 with 3,502.
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(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)
BISHKEK, FEB. 15 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — In an interview with the Bloomberg news agency, Tolkunbek Abdygulov, head of the Kyrgyz Central Bank essentially told ordinary Kyrgyz that they should buy gold rather than keep their savings in the unpredictable Kyrgyz som.
Gold is considered a safe-haven for investors and savers whenever the global outlook is fragile but it holds added importance in Kyrgyzstan, which relies on the Kumtor gold mine to produce over a tenth of its GDP.
Like the rest of the region, an economic slowdown has hit the Kyrgyz economy, denting GDP growth and undermining the economy. The Kyrgyz som has slid from around 50/$1 to 69/$1.
Mr Abdygulov appeared to reference this som weakness in his interview with Bloomberg.
“Gold can be stored for a long time and, despite the price fluctuations on international markets, it doesn’t lose its value for the population as a means of savings,” he was quoted as saying.
Over the past couple of years, the Kyrgyz Central Bank has offered to sell gold in different sizes to ordinary Kyrgyz and to store it safely. Mr Abdygulov said that the Bank had sold around 140kg of gold through this system.
And the Central Bank appears to be leading by example. It has increased its purchases of gold while many other central banks have reduced theirs. Bloomberg data showed that Kyrgyzstan currently holds around $190m of gold in its reserves, four times the level of 10 years ago.
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(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)
FEB. 16 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Iran will lend 83m euro to build a third power transmission line from Armenia, the Iranian media reported. Iran has become an increasingly important importer of electricity from Armenia over the past few years. Armenia has also increased imports of Iranian gas. Relations between the two neighbours have blossomed.
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(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)
FEB. 16/17 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Talco, the Tajik aluminium smelter owned through a series of offshore companies by the family of President Emomali Rakhmon, has struck a deal to end a long-running dispute with Russia’s Rusal, both Eurasianet and RFE/RL reported.
A court in 2014 ruled against Talco, in a ruling that focused on a breach of contract a decade earlier, meaning that it needed to pay Rusal up to $375m.
Now, Eurasianet and RFE/RL reported, Talco will pay Rusal the full amount it has been fined plus an extra sum for control of the Hyatt hotel and a business centre in Dushanbe, which Rusal had owned.
The deal appears to allow both sides to save face and also for Rusal to quit Tajikistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)
BISHKEK, FEB. 14 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Omurbek Babanov registered himself as a candidate for the Ata-Zhurt party in this year’s presidential elections in Kyrgyzstan, the second former PM to declare his intention of standing.
Mr Babanov was PM for eight months under President Almazbek Atambayev in 2011/12. He follows former PM Temir Sariev as declaring his candidacy early ahead of the election planed for November.
Like his rival, Mr Sariev, Mr Babanov, 47, had been forced to resign as PM in August 2012 over corruption allegations.
Both will be competing to replace Mr Atambayev who is stepping down after a single five year term, as stipulated by the constitution. Observers have said the vote could be one of the few genuinely competitive elections in Central Asia since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
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(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)
FEB. 15/16 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Dutch convenience store chain Spar opened up more stores in Azerbaijan and Georgia, part of its drive to increase its global coverage. Spar said that it had opened three more stores in Baku at the end of last year, following the opening of its first store in the Azerbaijani capital in December 2015. In Georgia, Spar also opened another store, bringing to 21 its total for Georgia. Spar has expanded outside its central Europe heartland by both owning its stores directly and granting an independent retailer the rights to use its brand.
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(News report from Issue No. 317, published on Feb.17 2017)
