Category Archives: Uncategorised

Pakistan wants Turkmenistan more involved in CASA-1000

SEPT. 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Pakistan said it wanted Turkmenistan to be more involved in the CASA-1000 electricity transmission project and drop plans to build an alternative electricity supply route. CASA-1000 is a World Bank-backed $1.2b plan to bring electricity from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Turkmenistan has pledged to either join the project or supply electricity to Pakistan via alternative routes.

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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)

Azerbaijan raises interest rates to 8-year high

SEPT. 9 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s Central Bank raised its key interest rate to 15% from 9.5%, its highest level since 2008, to try to boost confidence in the ailing currency.

The manat has been falling in value for weeks, hitting an all-time low of 1.67/$1 on Friday, setting off fears of another currency crisis. Last year, the Central Bank devalued its currency twice, undermining confidence and wiping out people’s manat-based savings. A series of protests across the country against the worsening economic conditions, almost unprecedented in Azerbaijan, unnerved the Azerbaijani leadership.

The currency had been gaining in value this year until the end of May when it began to slip again. The manat has now lost 11% of its value since May 30.

The day before, the Azerbaijani Central Bank had sold $100m to try to prop up its currency.

Last week, Bloomberg News reported that local banks and exchange bureaus had suspended sales of foreign currencies due to the high demand.

Ratings agency Moody’s said the government should change regulations on capital controls brought in earlier this year.

“The restrictions on foreign-currency sales have led to the emergence of a parallel exchange market, which in our view speaks to the challenges the central bank faces to stem dollar demand and elevates risks of an accelerated depreciation in the official exchange rate,” Moody’s analysts said in a report.

Low oil prices have hit Azerbaijan’s economy hard over the past two years. Azerbaijan ‘s economy is particularly dependent on oil revenues as it generates around 3/4 of its income.

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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)

Succession speculation stirs in Kazakhstan after reshuffle

ASTANA, SEPT. 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev shifted Karim Massimov, one of his closest allies, from PM to head the country’s security services, an unexpected reshuffle that may prepare the way for a more significant promotion linked to his succession plans.

Bakhytzhan Sagintayev, previously a deputy PM, was appointed interim PM but he is likely to make way when Mr Nazarbayev proposes a new PM to parliament, which MPs will then rubber-stamp.

Dariga Nazarbayeva, Mr Nazarbayev’s daughter, who was named deputy PM one year ago is touted as a potential new PM and possible next president. Analysts have discussed other high-profile Kazakh officials but she is considered a front runner. Mr Nazarbayev is 76-years-old and his apparent lack of a succession plan was highlighted by the unexpected death this month of Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan’s president.

Mr Massimov had served for the second time as Kazakh PM since April 2014. His move to the head the security services will help Mr Nazarbayev maintain his authority over the apparatus, considered essential for maintaining control over the country. Vladimir Zhumakanov, who had been head of the Security Service since December 2015, was appointed advisor to the president.

Mr Sagintayev, the interim PM, is a career bureaucrat who had been head of the Zhambyl region before becoming, briefly, in 2012 and 2013 Kazakhstan’s economy minister and then a deputy PM.

He is clearly trusted and was appointed head of the Kazakh atomic agency in 2015 after the death of one of Mr Nazarbayev’s favourites, Nurlan Kapparov.

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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)

BP expects flat oil output in Azerbaijan

SEPT. 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — British oil company BP said it expects flat oil output in Azerbaijan in 2017. BP also expects oil prices to hover around $40- 50/barrel for the next two years. In the first six months of 2016, production at Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG), Azerbaijan’s biggest oil producing field, production rose to 16m tonnes, 2% higher than in the same period in 2015.

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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)

Chinese company buys Tajik fertiliser plant

SEPT. 7 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Tajik government sold a 50% stake in Tajik Azot, a fertiliser producer, to China’s Henan Zhong Holding, a chemical company. Under the deal, the Chinese company pledged to invest $360m to modernise and operate the plant, giving Tajikistan’s economy a boost. In 2014, the government seized Tajik Azot, previously owned by Ukrainian businessman Dmitro Firtash, after Firtash was arrested in Vienna.

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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)

Tajik opposition leader freed

SEPT. 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Tajik court freed a high-ranking member of the Islamic Renaissance Party as part of a mass amnesty. Zurafo Rakhmoni was the only high-ranking woman arrested last year after an alleged attempted coup. She was serving a two-year sentence. More than 12,000 prisoners were freed in the amnesty. Ms Rakhmoni was the only one to be freed among jailed IRPT leaders.

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(News report from Issue No. 295, published on Sept. 9 2016)

Kazakh court starts Tuleshov’s trial

SEPT. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The military court in Astana started the trial of Kazakh businessmanTokhtar Tuleshov, arrested in January on charges of plotting to overthrow the government. Tuleshov, who owns a beer factory in the southern city of Shymkent, was said to be behind the protests against the land reform in Kazakhstan, which mushroomed in several Kazakh cities in the spring.

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(News report from Issue No. 296, published on Sept. 16 2016)

Uzbeks worry about the future

BISHKEK, AUG. 31 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Human rights activists and Western analysts have lauded the death of Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan’s only post-Soviet leader and a man they detest for his cruel human rights abuses, but many ordinary Uzbeks are more worried about the potential instability that could follow.

A Conway Bulletin correspondent in Bishkek spoke to people in Uzbekistan who all said that Karimov’s death this week from a stroke was a worrying moment for the country.

Murodjan, a 26-year-old businessman who lives in the southern Uzbek city of Gulistan, said Karimov had done a lot for Uzbekistan.

“Any young politician who comes after him will struggle to maintain stability,” he told the Bulletin.

During his 25-year reign, Mr Karimov often talked up the dangers posed by Islamic radicals. His opponents said that he played the security card too strongly and that it was simply an excuse to crackdown on dissidents. They said that massive human rights abuses showed what a tyrant he was.

And yet the West appreciated the stability Mr Karimov was able to impose, using Uzbekistan as a key transit route for sending military kit into and out of neighbouring Afghanistan during NATO’s war against the Taliban.

Abror, 24, who lives in Tahskent, told the Bulletin before confirmation of Karimov’s death that he hoped the news was wrong.

“The authorities informed us that his health state is stable, I really hope this is the case,” he said.

He will be disappointed.

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(News report from Issue No. 294, published on Sept. 2 2016)

Uzbek President Karimov dies

SEPT. 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan declared that President Islam Karimov, its first and only leader since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, had died.

Throughout Friday speculation had been mounting that Karimov, who was 78, had died after a stroke six days earlier but it took until around 10pm local time for Uzbekistan’s government to confirmed it.

“On September 2 2016 after a long illness, President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov, an outstanding statesman and politician, died,” the Interfax news agency quoted from an official statement.

A news reader on an Uzbek government station later said that the funeral would be held on Saturday Sept. 3 and that there would be three days of official mourning.

Karimov was reviled by human rights activists for his abuses and cruelty but Western governments, and many Uzbeks, appreciated the stability that he imposed, although often through repressive police operations, on Central Asia’s most populous country.

After independence in 1991, Karimov steadily increased the state’s control over the country, forfeiting its natural place as Central Asia’s economic and cultural hub to neighbouring Almaty in Kazakhstan by closing off its people and its economy.

Karimov brooked no dissent. Dissidents and opposition were imprisoned and beaten. In 2005 Uzbek soldiers shot dead an estimated 300 people protesting against the government in the eastern town of Andijan.

The question now for Uzbekistan is who takes over. Karimov didn’t, publicly at least, lay out a succession plan and his eldest daughter, Gulnara Karimova, who had been considered his natural successor has been under house arrest since 2014.

Media reported that PM Shavkat Mirziyoev had been appointed to head Karimov’s funeral committee. Some analysts said that this indicated that he was headed for the top job.

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(News report from Issue No. 294, published on Sept. 2 2016)

Samsung cancels Kazakh power plant deal

ALMATY, SEPT. 1 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — South Korea’s Samsung pulled out of a $2.5b deal with Kazakhstan to build a coal-fired power plant on the shores of Lake Balkhash in the south of the country because of the low oil prices.

A collapse in oil prices since 2014 has hit Kazakhstan’s finances hard, forcing the government to cancel projects. Although there has been no response from the Kazakh government, the inference from Samsung’s statement is that it was worried that Kazakhstan would not be able to buy as much electricity as they had agreed.

“Samsung C&T exercised the put option regarding all of its Balkhash thermal power plant shares, 50% plus one share,” the company said in a statement. “[This] is a demand for Samruk Energy to acquire all the shares within 60 days from the date of notice for $192.5m.”

Samsung stopped construction work on the power plant 12 months ago after a disagreement with the Kazakh government over the agreed price it would pay for buying electricity from the plant, the first indicator that the deal may be running into serious trouble.

For Kazakhstan, Samsung’s decision to cancel the contract is a blow for two reasons — it is damaging for Kazakhstan’s reputation as a place to do business and also places further pressure on its current Soviet-era energy production system. Demand for electricity has been booming because of rising population and living standards. The Balkhash power plant had been considered essential for maintaining Kazakhstan’s power production.

In January, another South Korean company, LG Chem, dropped its plans to build a $4.2b petrochemical complex in Kazakhstan due to sustained low oil prices.

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(News report from Issue No. 294, published on Sept. 2 2016)