Category Archives: Uncategorised

Kazakhstan’s mobile operator posts Q2 revenues 15% down from 2015

ALMATY, JULY 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kcell, Kazakhstan’s largest mobile operator, said Q2 revenues were 15.3% lower than last year because of weak economic conditions and aggressive competition which have driven down prices.

Kcell’s Q2 revenues of 36.4b tenge ($107.7m) represented a slight improvement over the previous quarter, when it posted 35.6b tenge ($107), its worst quarter since an IPO in 2012. Importantly, however, Kcell said that its subscriber base is holding up through an economic downturn.

“In the second quarter we started to see some stabilisation in market prices and subscriber numbers,” the company’s CEO Arti Ots said in a statement.

Increased competition and the depreciation of the tenge currency against the US dollar over the past year have knocked revenues for mobile operators in Kazakhstan.

In April 2016, revenues for all mobile companies in Kazakhstan were down by 21% to 68b tenge ($204m) compared to the same period last year, according to government data.

Sweden’s Telia Company owns a 62% stake in Kcell. It has said that it wants to sell this stake because of reputational damage caused by a corruption probe into bribes it paid to enter the Uzbek market.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Azerbaijanian authorities release Iranian assets

JULY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Iranian government said that Azerbaijan’s authorities had decided to release assets belonging to Naftiran Intertrade Company (NICO) and the Central Bank of Iran, as part of the relaxation of international sanctions against Iran. Mohsen Pak Ayeen, Iran’s Ambassador to Baku, said that a total of $400m held at the International Bank of Azerbaijan were released by local courts.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Iran boosts gas for Armenia

JULY 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Iran increased gas supplies to Armenia to make up for a drop in Armenian imports from Russia, imposed by repairs to a pipeline crossing Georgia.

The deal highlights the rivalry between Moscow and Tehran for gas supply contracts to Armenia and, more widely, the South Caucasus.

For one month from July 10, repair work will halt gas flows along the Russia-Georgia-Armenia pipeline, Kazak-Saguramo.

Analysts have said the maintenance work on the pipeline from Russia has given Iran a chance to position itself as a reliable alternative supplier of gas.

Armenia imported 818m cubic metres of gas in the first half of 2016 from Russia, a drop of 7.7% from 2015. This is around five times more than Iran currently exports to Armenia.

Levon Yolyan, Armenia’s minister of energy, was due to visit Iran on July 25, to negotiate the gas supplies.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Islamic banking grows in Kazakhstan

JULY 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Zaman Bank, a small bank in Kazakhstan, said it had converted into an Islamic financial institution. Kazakhstan’s Central Bank signed off on the deal. With assets of 15.7b tenge ($46.5m), Zaman has a small presence in the Kazakh banking market and only one branch, in Almaty. Zaman will now join Bank Al-Hilal the more prominent Islamic lender in the country. Islamic banking, which promotes lending with an Islamic ethos, is becoming more popular in Central Asia’s finance sector.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Kyrgyz President signs CASA-1000 deals

JULY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev signed a range of laws that ratify domestic and international agreements on CASA-1000, an electricity transmission project that will send power from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Loans from international lenders, including the World Bank and the Islamic Development Bank, will make up 70% of Kyrgyzstan’s total funding for the project.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Georgia Central Bank chief says he may let lari value fall

TBILISI, JULY 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Koba Gvenetadze, the new chief of the Georgian Central Bank, hinted that he wants the lari currency to slide further to keep pace with Georgia’s neighbours who have all seen their currencies fall heavily over the past two years.

Mr Gvenetadze said that the lari had strengthened too much against the US dollar earlier this year and as soon as the Central Bank relaxed its interventions in the currency market in mid-June, it slid to 2.34/$1, down from a high of 2.13/$1.

“Part of the population thinks that a steady foreign exchange is a synonym of stability, but that’s wrong,” Mr Gvenetadze told the newspaper Rezonansi in an interview designed to lay out his monetary policy. Mr Gvenetadze took over as the Central Bank chief in March.

He said that if people continue to use US dollar-equivalent measures to calculate their wealth or the value of their property, the lari will continue to suffer.

“Sometimes unpopular decisions can be made, but we need to see what happens in the future,” Mr Gvenetadze said.

After losing 27% of its value in 2015, the lari had strengthened significantly against the dollar, gaining 13% by June. Since then, though, it has fallen back to January levels.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Uzbek PM warns Tajikistan on dangers of Rogun

JULY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbek PM Shavkat Mirziyoyev complained to his Tajik counterpart over the signing of a $3.9b contract with Italy’s Salini Impregilo to build the Rogun dam and hydropower station on the Vakhsh river.

Uzbekistan has always opposed the project, which it has said will reduce essential water flow from the Pamir mountains to the Amu Darya river which irrigates Uzbek cotton fields.

For Tajikistan, Rogun carries symbolic value, it will be the world’s tallest dam, and is also economically important.

Mr Mirziyoyev said Tajikistan’s stance will trigger a reaction.

“The persistence with which the Government of Tajikistan seeks at all costs to continue construction of the Rogun hydroelectric power station, cannot but cause anxiety for the possible dangerous and irreparable consequences of such risky steps taken by the Tajik side,” he wrote.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

China to invest in Uzbekistan’s food processing

JULY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — China’s Xinjiang Silu Changlong Investment said it will partner with Uzbekistan’s ministry of economy to establish a $28.7m food processing, packaging and logistics centre in Bukhara, in the south of the country.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Kazakh officials arrest head of construction department

JULY 18 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Kazakh anti-corruption agency ordered the arrest of Yerkin Bukharbayev, head of the construction department in the city of Shymkent, southern Kazakhstan. Mr Bukharbayev is accused of having embezzled public funds during a tender in 2013 to improve the flow of the Badam river which runs through the city. Bukharbayev and his associates allegedly stole 170m tenge ($1.1m at the time).

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)

Armenia to ban Turkish products

JULY 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Armenia plans to ban the import of 50 Turkish products into Armenia, officially because they fail to meet new safety standards, a move that could reduce its overall imports from Turkey by up to 20%, Vazgen Safaryan, head of the lobby group Union of Domestic Producers, told local media.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 290, published on July 22 2016)