Category Archives: Uncategorised

Armenia to replace Mestamor

SEPT. 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia will decide within the next two years what to replace the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant with when they decommission it in 2026, media reported quoting government officials. Metsamor, which lies 30km from Yerevan is controversial. It supplies 40% of Armenia’s power but the EU and the US want it closed down because they say it is a safety risk.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)

Stock market: Central Asia Metals

SEPT. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan-focused copper producer Central Asia Metals continued to gain this week, rallying on its positive half-year report it published in mid-September.

Its stock price in London was up 1.3% to 182.3 on Thursday compared to last week. It has averaged a growth of 1.2% over the past three weeks.

In its half-year report, published on Sept. 13, the company said it increased copper production by 27% to 6,908 tonnes, which helped its revenues to grow marginally to $30.9m despite a sharp fall in copper prices, which have fallen by 17.5% compared to last year.

Importantly too, the company managed to cut production costs by 40%.

“[H1 2016 was] another record period of copper production, resulting in a continued strong financial performance for the Group. The devaluation of the local currency has been a key factor in our reduced costs of production,” Nick Clarke, Central Asia Metals’ executive chairman said in a note.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)

Referendum season

SEPT. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – >> Azerbaijan held a referendum this week to tweak its constitution. Didn’t Tajikistan have one in May and hasn’t Kyrgyzstan said it will hold one in December. What’s with all these referendums?

>> The autocrat’s textbook says that every so often you need to call up a referendum to make changes, big or minor, to the constitution, and also to show off just how popular you are. They all have their peculiarities and differences, but leaders from Central Asia and the South Caucasus have all played the referendum card.

In May, 92% of Tajikistan’s voting population turned up to extend presidential powers.

This week, a referendum in Azerbaijan proposed 29 small-scale amendments to the Constitution, which were overwhelmingly adopted, of course.

In the coming months, Kyrgyzstan is likely to have a referendum to grant more powers to the PM.

In previous years, countries across the region have held several referendums. Essentially the aim has been to change the Constitution to allow the incumbent to remain in power by scraping limits on terms, age caps, the length of each term.

>> OK, but are these changes meaningful? Do they have a real impact on politics?

>>These kinds of referendums can be meaningful. From a legal point of view, they change the law. They scrap age requirements to become president — as was the case in Tajikistan and Azerbaijan — and transfer powers from the president to the PM — like Kyrgyzstan’s referendum proposes.

In practice, however, their main aim is for the presidents to retain power or to transfer it to their offspring. There have been notable, and honourable exceptions, of course but not many.

Tajikistan’s referendum this year scrapped limits on presidential terms and lowered the age that a person can run for president to 30 from 35, potentially allowing President Rakhmon’s son, Rustam Emomali, to run for office in 2020.

Azerbaijan had already scrapped limits on presidential term in a referendum in 2009. This time round it lowered the age requirement to 18 from 35 and gave the president the right to dissolve Parliament. President Aliyev’s son Heydar is 19 now. This may be a coincidence, of course.

>> And what about Kyrgyzstan?

>> Kyrgyzstan is a little different. President Almazbek Atambayev will have to leave office next year after his term expires. Some have speculated that, in an effort to avoid losing power he is trying to strengthen the office of PM where he would like to return once he steps down next year.

Certainly his reasons for supporting changes to the constitution are not entirely clear.

The key difference, once again, with other countries in Central Asia, is that Kyrgyzstan’s democracy has advanced further.

>> So, essentially, most of the more seriously autocratic leaders in the region, that’s Azerbaijan and Central Asia with the exception of Kyrgyzstan, have all used referendums to improve their chances of holding on to power? By contrast Georgia, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan have held referendums in the last few years to boost the power of Parliament over the presidency? Is that right?

>>More of less, although it is important to understand that the drivers of referendums in Georgia, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan can also lie in self-interest with incumbent presidents hoping to hold on to power by becoming PM.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)

Kazakh oil company revenue drops

SEPT. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan-focused oil company Roxi Petroleum posted revenues of $896,000 in the first half of 2016, 7.6% lower than in the same period last year. After tax, the company posted a loss of $2.5m, compared to a profit of $13.2m last year when Roxi sold the Galaz oil field. In a statement, chairman Clive Carver stressed the importance of the company’s success in reducing operating costs.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)

Armenia’s C Bank cuts interest rates

SEPT. 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s Central Bank cut interest rates by 50 basis points to 6.75%, in an effort to combat deflation. The Bank said that after a positive first half, the economy slowed significantly in Q3. This is the sixth time this year that the Central Bank has cut interest rates. At the beginning of 2016, interest rates stood at 8.75%.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)

Georgian Police arrest nationalists in Tbilisi after demo

TBILISI, SEPT. 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in Tbilisi arrested 11 men after they attacked Turkish cafes and people wearing Muslim clothes after a march by nationalists through the city.

According to reports, a group of men, some masked, gathered at Rustaveli metro station in the centre and walked through a small street with numerous cafes and foreign restaurants where they shouted “Glory to our nation, death to enemies” and attacked the cafes.

The interior ministry later released a statement which blamed a group called Georgian Power, linked to hooligans at Georgia’s biggest football team Dynamo Tbilisi.

Earlier this year, a group of nationalists threw sausages at diners in a Tbilisi vegan restaurant.

A few days after that another group of nationalists and ultraconservative Orthodox Christians disrupted an open air concert in Tbilisi, accusing the organisers of arranging mass orgies.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)

Uzbeks on post-Karimov diplomatic push

SEPT. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rustam Azimov, Uzbekistan’s finance minister, flew to South Korea to boost trade, an extension of the diplomatic push that the new administration in Uzbekistan initiated after the death of President Islam Karimov earlier this month.

In Seoul, Mr Azimov met with South Korea’s Trade Minister Joo Hyung-hwan and the chairman of Korea Eximbank, Lee Dukhoon, who pledged investments of $250m in the transport and telecoms sectors.

This week, Abdulaziz Kamilov, Uzbekistan’s foreign minister, visited Dushanbe and earlier this month foreign leaders, including Russia’s

Vladimir Putin and Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev, were in Uzbekistan to mourn Karimov and swap notes with acting President and PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev who is likely to be given the job full-time.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)

Mosque staff in Kazakhstan file lawsuit

SEPT. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Staff at the Nur-Gasyr mosque in Aktobe, the largest in the city, filed a lawsuit against their employer to claim salaries which they say have not been paid. The mosque has not commented. The unpaid salaries is a reflection of the tight economic conditions in Kazakhstan and how problems are filtering through Kazakh society. The Nur-Gasyr mosque is one of 13 Islamic worship buildings in Aktobe. It was built in 2008 and cost $16.6m to build.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)

Turkmen railways to cut 30% work-force

SEPT. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s ministry of railway transport will cut 30% of its work- force by the end of the year, opposition news outlet Alternative News of Turkmenistan (ANT) reported. Sources in Ashgabat reported the sacking of 15 workers in mid-September. ANT has previously reported on government job cuts and unpaid salaries.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)

Azerbaijan to have talks with Bulgaria on exports

SEPT. 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Bozhidar Lukarski, Bulgaria’s minister of economy, will hold talks with an Azerbaijani delegation to explore the possibility of buying 1b cubic metres of gas. SOCAR and Bulgargaz, the two state-owned companies, signed a supply agreement in 2014. So far, however, the Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria, the pipeline through which Azerbaijan’s gas will be pumped, has not been built. Azerbaijan sees exports to Europe as key to growing its client base.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 298, published on Sept. 30 2016)