Category Archives: Uncategorised

Azerbaijan to link energy system with Russia

JULY 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan’s energy minister Natig Aliyev said that his country is ready to link its energy system with Russia and Iran and create a north-south energy corridor. Once complete, the corridor would allow Iran to import around 700 megawatt of electricity per year. Iran currently imports electricity from Armenia. At the end of June, Iran and Azerbaijan completed a cross-border power transmission line.

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(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Uzbek authorities fire prosecutor

JULY 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — One Uzbek prosecutor was fired and the head of a local police station in Tashkent is also being questioned in an investigation over an alleged fraudulent pyramid scheme master- minded by businessman Akhmad Tursunbayev. Mr Tursunbayev was arrested in mid-June for having stolen money from people with the promise of a 100% return, Eurasianet reported. The investigators now claim that public officials may have been involved.

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(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

China to build piplene between Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan

JULY 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — China will go ahead with the construction of a fourth line of the Central Asia-China gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, officials said. Luo Wei Dong, a deputy at China’s ministry of commerce told the Kremlin- funded Sputnik news agency that the pipeline will be built in the near future and will increase the overall capacity by 54% to 85b cubic metres/year.

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(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Georgia looks to boost wine sales to China

TBILISI, JULY 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgia’s wine marketing chiefs are looking to reduce their export over-dependence on Russia and boost sales to China.

Having cemented its status and influence in Central Asia over the past decade, China has pushed harder for a stronger foothold in the South Caucasus. In the last few years it has opened up cultural centres, sent senior officials on trade and diplomatic visits and given out soft loans.

Now China also appears to be sponsoring an education and advertising drive to encourage consumers to buy products from the region, including that most iconic of Georgian products — wine.

In an interview with The Conway Bulletin, Irakli Cholobargia, the head of marketing at the Georgian National Wine Agency, said that China had built shops dedicated to selling Georgian wine.

“Wine consumption in China is growing and Georgian wine is an extremely attractive product on Chinese market because of its ancient origins and old traditions,” he said.

“There are businessmen who started to open big wine houses wholly dedicated to Georgian wines. This is a completely different approach to the wine business. Nowhere else is there this kind of approach.”

And the figures back up this trend. China has now become Georgia’s third biggest export market after a 148% increase in sales during the first half of the year.

Georgia is likely to sign a free trade agreement with China later this year, again boosting trade between the two countries.

All this, Mr Cholobargia said, was helping his strategy of reducing the Georgian wine industry’s reliance on Russia. Russia stopped a number of products being imported from Georgia in 2006, including wine, when relations between the two countries fell apart, leading to a brief war in 2008. In 2013, the trade embargo was relaxed.

“The Russian market is not a stable market. Before the embargo in 2006, 80% of our export went to Russia,” Mr Cholobargia. “When it opened up in 2013, we had 65% of total export to Russia. Now it is about 50%. Our goal is to keep shrinking this, and maybe get to the 30%.”

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(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Turkmen airport holds record

JULY 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Ashgabat International Airport now holds the world record for largest bird-shaped building according to the World Record Academy, a competitor of the Guinness World Records organisation. The new passenger terminal of the Turkmen airport was built to resemble the lacyn, the national falcon-like bird. The building spans 364m. Turkmenistan also boasts the largest indoors Ferris wheel and the largest hand-woven carpet.

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(News report from Issue No. 291, published on Aug. 1 2016)

Tajikistan’s aluminum smelter increases production

JULY 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajikistan’s state-owned aluminium smelter TALCO said it produced 73,100 tonnes of aluminium in H1 2016, a 13% increase over the same period last year. Low commodity prices, though, meant it sold aluminium at a price range of $1,400-$1,600/tonne. Production costs have reached $2,000/tonne.

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