SEPT. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Malaysia’s oil and gas company Petronas signed a memorandum with Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR to develop the Goshadash offshore block. Goshadash is located in the Absheron archipelago in the Caspian Sea. Petronas is already active in Azerbaijan’s oil and gas sector, as it owns a 15.5% stake in the Shah Deniz gas field.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kyrgyzstan’s public debt has soared to $4.1b inching closer to the psychological threshold of 60% of the country’s GDP. The parliamentary committee on budget and finance warned that the debt is growing dangerously. A spokesperson for the ministry of finance said the debt level is still under control. Kyrgyzstan’s economy, like the rest of the region, has been undermined by a fall in the value of its currency.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Money transfers from migrant workers in Russia to Central Asia and the South Caucasus fell by 12% in Q2 2016 to $2.3b compared to a year ago. Importantly, remittances to Armenia and Uzbekistan fell by 30% and 20% respectively, compared to the same period last year. Kyrgyzstan was the only country which received more than last year, $487m, a 21% increase. Remittances from migrant workers in Russia form a vital part of the economy for non-energy exporters in the region.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Rustam Suleimanov, director at Kazakhstan’s state-gas distributor KazTransGas, said that the country is ready to export gas to China from Q4 2016. Over the past few years, Kazakhstan has built up transport capacity to link its gas fields with the main Central Asia- China pipeline, which has pumped gas from Turkmenistan since 2009. Kazakhstan will use Line C of the pipeline, which has a capacity of 20b cubic metres.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenian carrier ArmWings will start a flight connection between Yerevan and Brussels in December. ArmWings, which does not yet have a website, said tickets can now be purchased at travel agents.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
BAKU, SEPT. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The bus driver who crashed into a group of Austrian teenage swimmers inside the athletes’ village on the eve of Baku’s European Games last year was sentenced to three years in prison for breaking road rules, but a security company camera-man who recorded and circulated the footage of the crash on the internet was found guilty of abuse of office and sentenced to four years in jail.
Footage of the crash showed a coach swinging through a roundabout too quickly and then mowing over the Austrian swimmers. One of the swimmers was left severely disabled and the accident overshadowed the Games.
The different length of prison sentences has concerned many Azerbaijanis who question the fairness of a justice system in which the man who made the information public was punished more harshly than the driver of the coach.
“You don’t have to be a lawyer to say that this judgment is completely disproportional. Recording and sharing such a video should not be a crime. It’s not a state secret,” Said, a 20-year old student at Baku State University told The Conway Bulletin.
“The government tried to cover the incident because they invested millions of dollars in the Games and didn’t want that to spoil their international image. But if they truly care about it, they should make sure the trial is fair. It clearly wasn’t.”
Three Austrian synchronised swimmers were hit by the coach on June 13, a day before the start of the European Games. Two of them, suffering from multiple broken bones and spine injury, were flown to Vienna on the personal jet of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev.
The driver of the coach pleaded guilty, saying he had mistaken the accelerator for the brake pedal.
Azerbaijan had tried to use the inaugural European Games in Baku to promote itself. Instead the Games were marred by the coach crash, another serious car crash and mediocre sporting performances.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s foreign minister Elmar Mammadyarov said his country is ready to hold more talks with Armenia to settle the long-lasting dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Mr Mammadyarov spoke with OSCE special representative Lamberto Zannier on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. In April, four days of fighting between Azerbaijan’s army and Armenia-backed forces punctured a fragile 1994 UN-organised ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan appointed a handful of new ministers, purging the previous government of Hovik Abrahamyan. Notably, Vardan Aramyan will be the new finance minister, Vahan Martirosyan was appointed transport and communications minister, while Ashot Manukyan will serve as energy minister. Mr Abrahamyan resigned earlier this month after a fall in the government’s popularity. He said a new government was needed.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Belgorkhimprom, a Belarusian firm in charge of building the Garlyk mining and processing plant in eastern Turkmenistan, has not paid wages to its workers for three months, according to opposition website Alternative News of Turkmenistan. Belgorkhimprom has not commented. The Garlyk plant will mostly service state-owned Turkmenkali, which produces potash, a fertilizer. Economic hardships have pushed back several industrial projects in Central Asia since the price of commodities collapsed in mid-2014.
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(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
SEPT. 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s customs committee said that car imports in Jan.-Aug. 2016 fell by 6.1% compared to the same period last year. In total, Azerbaijan imported 3,454 vehicles, mostly passenger cars. Over the past three years, car imports have fallen sharply in Azerbaijan, after the manat currency has lost around half its value during two devaluations and the ditching of the US dollar peg.
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 297, published on Sept. 23 2016)
