DEC. 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The EBRD issued a €5m ($5.2m) loan to Aversi Pharma, a top-5 healthcare provider in Georgia, for the creation of a new cancer treatment centre in Tbilisi and a clinic in Telavi, in the east of the country. Last year, the EBRD loaned $10.9m to Aversi Pharma to refurbish its hospital in Marneuli, in the south of the country.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)f
DEC. 9-13 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Days after a court in Paris freed former Kazakh banker Mukhtar Ablyazov from jail, the self-styled opposition figure promised to reignite his campaign to topple Kazakhstan’s long-running leader Nursultan Nazarbayev.
The Paris court had overturned an order to extradite Mr Ablyazov to Russia because of concerns that he would be tortured and then handed over to Kazakhstan. Mr Nazarbayev has viewed Mr Ablyazov as his number one enemy and wanted to see him tried in a Kazakh court for plotting a coup.
Mr Ablyazov, though, walked out of prison in Paris, three years after his arrest in the south of France. In an interview with the AFP news agency, he was in combative mood.
“My main aim is to bring democratic change to Kazakhstan and that Nazarbayev’s regime falls,” he said.
For Mr Nazarbayev this means a resumption of the well-funded campaign to see Mr Ablyazov in prison. The thought of the former energy minister, turned-billionaire-banker living freely in Paris will anger and irritate him.
In a subsequent Liberation interview, Mr Ablyazov was photographed looking gaunt and thin. As well as promising to continue to fund opponents of Mr Nazarbayev, he also said that he had sponsored a revolution in Kyrgyzstan in 2005.
“It was important for me in order to launch a democratic process in one of the former Soviet republics and they to be able to carry out proper reforms, which would become a model for Kazakhstan,” he said.
Kyrgyzstan’s 2005 revolution overthrew Askar Akayev. He was replaced by Kurmanbek Bakiyev who was also overthrown in a revolution in 2010.
For Kazakhstan’s disparate opposition, Mr Ablyazov is a complicated and at times Faustian character. A member of the Kazakh elite, he fled to Moscow and London after the collapse of BTA Bank, where he was chairman. The Bank had billions of dollars of debt which were exposed during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008/9. The government bought the bank, along with other smaller banks, to protect savers.
In the meantime, Mr Ablyazov set himself up as an opposition leader in a leafy area of north London.
The Kazakh government accused Mr Ablyazov of stealing billions of dollars from BTA Bank and prosecuted him through the courts in London. During one of the court sessions he absconded and went on the run in the south of France.
Mr Ablyazov, though, was unrepentant.
“Vladimir Putin is rebuilding a Soviet Union and Kazakhstan is its main ally,” he said, explaining his motivations for trying to overthrow Mr Nazarbayev.
The Kazakh Prosecutor-General’s office has said it will continue to prosecute Mr Ablyazov for the alleged theft of $5b, abuse of office, plotting a coup and various other crimes.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)
DEC. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Asian Development Bank and the Kyrgyz government signed a loan agreement for the upgrade of the Soviet-era Toktogul hydropower plant, the biggest in Kyrgyzstan. The ADB will provide loans totalling $60m and a $50m grant. Toktogul produces around 40% of the country’s electricity. This is the third phase of the refurbishment at Toktogul. The ABD has already participated in the funding of the first two phases.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)
DEC. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — In a populist show of tenderness towards ordinary Kazakhs, President Nursultan Nazarbayev ordered the state pension to be increased by 20% next year. His apparent show of magnanimity coincided with the country’s 25th anniversary of independence from the Soviet Union. Pensions are paid in tenge, which has lost half its value since 2014.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)
DEC. 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Security forces in Turkmenistan have detained dozens of people with alleged links to Turkey’s Gulen movement, Eurasianet reported quoting relatives. Turkey, one of Turkmenistan’s biggest foreign allies, accuses followers of the exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen of a failed coup in July. It has asked its allies in Central Asia and the South Caucasus to persecute Gulenists.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)
DEC. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s Central Bank said that Tojiksodirotbank (TSB), the country’s troubled second-largest lender, has completed its temporary administration period and will now resume banking activities.
The Central Bank intervened in TSB in May, saving the bank from bankruptcy. It cut staff numbers and injected 2b somoni ($254m) into the bank, becoming an 80% shareholder. Sources cited by the Avesta news agency also said the government had injected 1.2b somoni ($152m) into Agroinvestbank and hundreds of millions of somoni into Fononbank and Tochprombank to save them from going bankrupt too.
These banks had suffered a liquidity shortage triggered by a fall in the value of the somoni and a steep rise in bad loans. Savers and government employees, who received salaries through banks were unable to access their funds.
Now, TSB said it will soon resume regular banking activity.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)f
DEC. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The European Parliament voted to renew a textile deal with Uzbekistan after dropping the agreement five years ago because of concerns over child labour, drawing anger from human rights groups who said that modern day slavery was being excused.
Under the EU-Uzbekistan trade deal, originally agreed in 1999 but suspended in 2011, tariffs on Uzbek cotton will be dropped. It is a major boost for Uzbek president Shavkat Mirziyoyev who appears to want to improve the country’s image after the death in September of Islam Karimov.
The vote was passed by 564 in favour versus 100 against the motion, with 41 abstentions.
Commenting on the vote, MEP Maria Arena, said: “This consent is the result of the progress and commitments made by Uzbekistan in the fight against forced and child labour. But as adult forced labour remains a strong concern, we will follow the situation closely and if there are serious human rights violations or any regress on these issues, MEPs will not hesitate to ask the Council and the Commission to suspend the entire partnership agreement.”
Last month the European Parliament’s influential International Trade Committee had voted to recommend that a deal was approved.
Uzbekistan has appeared to respond to pressure to clean up its employment issues. This year the UN’s International Labour Organisation monitored the harvest in Uzbekistan and said that while doctors and teachers were forced to work in the cotton fields, there were far few children working.
Cotton is a major cash earner for Uzbekistan. It is the fifth largest cotton producer in the world.
Human rights group, though, were less than impressed. “Adopting this Protocol now sends the wrong message to Tashkent,” Human Rights Watch, a New York-based group, said. “Do members want to be seen by Uzbekistan’s millions of victims of forced labour as the parliament that turned a blind eye to their suffering?”
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)
DEC. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — AZAL, Azerbaijan’s flagship carrier, said it will establish a subsidiary to operate low-cost flights. The new company, BUTA Airways, will take over from the Azaljet brand used this year for AZAL’s low-cost flights. Azalet had not been a separate company. AZAL will own 100% of BUTA, which will start operations in late 2017.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)
DEC. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s GDP was 3.9% lower in the nine months to the end of October this year compared to the same period in 2015, the country’s statistics committee reported, confirming the country’s sharp economic downturn. A collapse in oil prices and a recession in Russia have dragged down Azerbaijan’s oil dependent economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)
DEC. 12 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The family of Rakhat Aliyev, Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev’s former son-in-law who was found dead in an Austrian prison cell in February 2015, called for an investigation into his death to be reopened. At a press conference the family presented a German expert who said that he thought Aliyev had been murdered. An Austrian investigation ruled that Aliyev had killed himself. Aliyev had been married to Dariga Nazarbayeva, Pres. Nazarbayev’s eldest daughter. He had fallen out with his father-in-law in 2007.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)
